Israel strike on Syria 'unacceptable': Russia

DAMASCUS: Russia warned on Thursday that any air strike against its ally Syria would be "unacceptable", as Israel maintained a strict silence on claims that it had bombed Syrian targets.

Russia's foreign ministry said it was "deeply concerned" after Damascus claimed a military research centre had come under Israeli fighter jet attack at dawn on Wednesday.

"If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked strikes against targets located on the territory of a sovereign state, which brazenly infringes on the UN Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motive used for its justification," said a ministry statement issued in Moscow.

The strident Russian statement came after the Syrian army accused Israel of launching a strike on its military research centre in Jamraya, near Damascus.

"Israeli fighter jets violated our airspace... and carried out a direct strike on a scientific research centre in charge of raising our level of resistance and self-defence," the general command said.

The warplanes entered Syria's airspace at low altitude and under the radar, the army said, adding that two site workers were killed.

"They... carried out an act of aggression, bombarding the site, causing large-scale material damage and destroying the building," state television quoted the military as saying.

Residents told AFP that six rockets hit the complex, leaving it partially destroyed, causing a fire and killing two people.

The army, meanwhile, denied separate reports from security sources that an Israeli air strike had targeted a weapons convoy from Syria near the border with Lebanon.

Israel has frequently warned that if Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons fell into the hands of Hezbollah, a close ally of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, it would be a casus belli.

But it has also raised the alarm over long-range Scud missiles or other advanced weaponry, such as anti-aircraft systems and surface-to-surface missiles, being transferred to the Lebanese militia, against which it fought a devastating war in 2006.

Israeli officials and the military on Thursday refused to confirm or deny any involvement in the alleged attack and had no comment on the reports that its warplanes had struck a weapons convoy along the Syria-Lebanon border.

Commentators said the modus operandi was very similar to a 2007 bombing raid on an undeclared Syrian nuclear facility at Al-Kibar, widely understood to be an Israeli strike but one which was never acknowledged by the Jewish state.

The United States, which is currently hosting Israeli military intelligence chief Aviv Kochavi, also declined to comment.

Israeli raid 'unmasks' true cause

Hezbollah, in a statement issued from its Beirut headquarters, said the air strike on Syria has "unmasked" the true origins of the bloody conflict in Syria.

The Shiite militant group, an archfoe of Israel, said the attack "fully unmasked what has been happening in Syria over the past two years and the criminal objectives of destroying this country and weakening its army."

The attack took place just days after Israel moved two batteries of its vaunted Iron Dome missile defence system to the north and at a time of rising fears that the Syria conflict could see chemical weapons leaking into Lebanon.

On the political front, Syria's main opposition group was to meet Thursday in Cairo, a day after a surprise statement from its chief that he was willing to hold talks with regime officials, a Syrian National Coalition member said.

"This meeting was organised well before the Syrian National Coalition leader, Moaz al-Khatib, made his statement," SNC member Samir Nashar told AFP.

Khatib announced on Facebook Wednesday that he was "ready for direct discussions with representatives of the Syrian regime in Cairo, Tunis or Istanbul".

He laid down as conditions the release of "160,000 detainees" and that the passports of exiled citizens be renewed in embassies abroad.

On the battlefront on Thursday, fierce clashes raged between soldiers and rebel fighters on the southern outskirts of Damascus as army tanks pounded the area, a watchdog group said.

The latest fighting came a day after more than 100 people were killed in violence across Syria, according to the Observatory. The United Nations says a total of more than 60,000 people have died in the country's 22-month conflict.

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'Iran prepared to up nuclear program'

VIENNA: Iran is poised for a major technological update of its uranium enrichment programme, allowing it to vastly increase production of the material that can be used for both reactor fuel and nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press Thursday.

The diplomats said that Iran last week told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it wants to install thousands of high-technology machines at its main enriching site at Natanz, in central Iran. The machines are estimated to be able to enrich up to five times faster than the present equipment.

Iran argues it has a right to enrich for a civilian nuclear power programme. But suspicion persists that the real aim is nuclear weapons, because it hid much of its programme until it was revealed from the outside more than a decade ago and because of what the IAEA says are indications that it worked secretly on weapons development. Defying UN Security Council demands that it halt enrichment, Iran has instead expanded it.

One of the diplomats said Iranian officials informed the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog that they planned to mount as many as 3,132 of the new-generation centrifuges. He said a confidential note circulated Thursday to the IAEA's 35-nation board cited Iranian officials as saying that domestically developed IR-2m centrifuges would be used.

Iran says it is enriching only to power reactors and for scientific and medical purposes. But because of its nuclear secrecy, many countries fear that Iran may break out from its present production that is below the weapons-grade threshold and start enriching to levels of over 90 per cent, used to arm nuclear weapons.

Tehran now has more than 10,000 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main plant at Natanz, 225 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Tehran, to fuel grade at below 4 percent. Its separate Fordo facility, southwest of Tehran, has close to 3,000 centrifuges producing material enriched to 20 per cent, which can be turned into weapons-grade uranium much more quickly.

Iran has depended on centrifuges whose design is decades old at both locations up to now, while occasionally displaying models of more advanced machines. If it makes good on its announcement to move to a high-tech model it will be able to increase its stockpile of enriched uranium at two to three times the present rate.

Tehran already has enough enriched material for several nuclear weapons. But it insists it has no such plans. And experts say that while it could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to arm a nuclear bomb with two to four months, it would still face serious engineering challenges that would lead to much longer delays before it would succeed in making the other components needed for a functioning warhead.

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France backs possible UN force in Mali

PARIS: French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday backed the idea of sending a United Nations peacekeeping force into Mali, saying France would play a role in any such plan.

The UN Security Council is to begin discussing the possibility of deploying UN troops in the stricken West African nation, envoys said of an idea it had previously been uncomfortable with before France's recent military intervention.

The French military on Wednesday took control of the airport in Kidal, the last town held by al-Qaida-linked rebels, and is planning to quickly hand over to a larger African force, whose task will be to root out insurgents in their mountain redoubts.

UN envoys have said sending in a peacekeeping force would offer clear advantages over an African-led force, as it would be easier to monitor human rights compliance and the United Nations could choose which national contingents to use in the force.

"This development is extremely positive and I want this initiative to be carried through," Le Drian said on France Inter radio, adding that France would "obviously play its role".

French has deployed some 4,500 troops in a three-week ground an air offensive, aimed at breaking Islamists' 10-month hold on towns in northern Mali.

After taking back the major Saharan towns of Gao and Timbuktu at the weekend, Le Drian confirmed that troops were still stuck at the airport in Kidal, where bad weather was preventing them from entering the town.

Many are now warning of the risk of ethnic reprisals as displaced black Malians take up arms to return to their liberated towns.

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Donors pledge $1bn in aid for Syrians

KUWAIT CITY: International donors at a Kuwait conference Wednesday pledged almost $1 billion in aid for stricken Syrians, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned of a "catastrophic" situation in their war-torn country.

"Total pledges so far are around $1 billion," a Gulf official said requesting anonymity, adding that "Saudi Arabia has pledged $300 million," after Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates each pledged a similar amount.

Addressing the so-named International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria in Kuwait City, Ban called for urgent financial aid, warning that if funds were not forthcoming "more Syrians will die".

"The situation in Syria is catastrophic," the UN chief said as he urged all parties to the conflict to "stop the killings".

Ban said that based on UN reports half of Syria's hospitals and a quarter of its schools had been destroyed while other vital infrastructure had been badly affected.

He stressed that humanitarian assistance would not resolve the crisis, which he said required a political solution.

Host Kuwait was first to make a pledge, offering $300 million, followed soon after by the UAE, another oil-rich Gulf country, which according to the official WAM news agency pledged a further $300 million.

"Due to the great sufferings of the Syrian people and to help ensure the success of the conference, I announce the Kuwaiti donation of $300 million for the Syrian people," Kuwait Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said as he opened the one-day conference.

Sheikh Sabah said that "horrifying reports" from Syria are a "cause for concern over the security of Syria, its future ... and over the security and future of the region."

He held the Syrian regime responsible for the tragic situation which he said resulted from its "rejection of the just popular demands and of Arab and international initiatives."

Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa said the tiny Gulf kingdom would offer $20 million while the German foreign ministry pledged in a statement around 10 million euros ($13.5 million).

UN humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos said that three million Syrians have fled their homes inside the country and that at least 2.3 million need basic help.

She said that $519 million of the funds to be raised are needed to assist those most affected by the conflict.

King Abdullah II of Jordan and Lebanese President Michel Sleiman both called at the conference for more aid to cope with increasing numbers of Syrian refugees in their respective countries.

The United States on Tuesday promised another $155 million to aid refugees fleeing the deadly conflict.

Non-governmental charity organisations, meeting in Kuwait Tuesday ahead of the conference, pledged $182 million for Syrian civilians affected by the deadly conflict.

The UN refugee agency said on Tuesday that there has been a steep rise in the number of Syrian refugees during the past few weeks and their number has surpassed 700,000.

UN humanitarian operations director John Ging warned ahead of the conference that the United Nations will be forced to cut already reduced food rations to hundreds of thousands of Syrians unless a huge cash injection is found.

UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said on Tuesday Syria's war had reached "unprecedented levels of horror", after dozens of men were found slaughtered in the northern city of Aleppo.

Brahimi told the divided UN Security Council it had to act now to halt the carnage epitomized by the at least 78 young men, each killed with a single bullet and dumped in a river in the battlefront city of Aleppo.

The United Nations says that more than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria's 22-month conflict, which erupted in March 2011 with peaceful protests but morphed into an armed insurgency after a harsh regime crackdown.

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French troops control key airport in north Mali

SEVARE, Mali: French forces have taken control of the airport in Kidal, seizing a key position in one of three provincial capitals the Islamist militants took over last year, officials said Wednesday. One Malian official said French troops even moved into the city, which was the last remaining urban stronghold of the Islamists in Mali.

French and Malian troops have recaptured two of the other provincial capitals, Timbuktu and Gao, in recent days, and been welcomed by overjoyed crowds. However, already concerns are emerging about whether the Islamists will try to return once France hands over the military operation to Mali and soldiers from neighboring countries.

Haminy Maiga, the interim president of the Kidal regional assembly, said French forces met no resistance when they arrived late Tuesday.

"The French arrived at 9:30pm aboard four planes, which landed one after another. Afterwards they took the airport and then entered the town, and there was no combat," said Maiga, who had been in touch with people in the town by satellite phone as all the normal phone networks were down.

"The French are patrolling the town and two helicopters are patrolling overhead," he added.

In Paris, French army Col. Thierry Burkhard confirmed that the airport was taken overnight and described the operation in Kidal itself as "ongoing."

On Tuesday, a secular Tuareg rebel group had asserted that they were in control of Kidal and other small towns in northern Mali. Maiga said those fighters had left Kidal and were at the entry posts on the roads from Gao and Tessalit.

France, the former colonial ruler, began sending in troops, helicopters and warplanes on Jan. 11 to turn the tide after the armed Islamists began encroaching on the south, toward the capital. French and Malian troops seized Gao during the weekend, welcomed by joyous crowds. They took Timbuktu on Monday. The Islamists gave up both cities and retreated into the surrounding desert.

To help battle the Islamists in their desert hideouts, a US military official says the Pentagon is considering setting up a drone base in northwest Africa to increase intelligence collection.

While most crowds in the freed cities have been joyous, months of resentment toward the Islamists already has erupted into violence in Gao.

Video footage filmed by an amateur cameraman and obtained by The Associated Press shows a mob attacking the symbol of the oppressive regime, the Islamic police headquarters.

Some celebrate cheering "I am Malian," while others armed with sticks and machetes attack suspected members of the Islamist regime. The graphic images show the mob as they mutilate the corpses of two young suspected jihadists lying dead in the street.

France's president said his country's forces would stay in Mali as long as necessary, but the French also have said they expect troops from African nations to take the lead as soon as they are able. There are now some 2,900 African soldiers in Mali, including 1,400 from Chad who are used to fighting in harsh, desert terrain like northern Mali.

Mali's military was severely affected by last year's coup and has a reputation for disorganization and bad discipline. Already Malian soldiers have been accused of fatally shooting civilians suspected of links to the Islamists. The military has promised to investigate the allegations.

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Zimbabwe had $217 in govt account: Minister

HARARE: After paying public workers' salaries last week, the balance in cash-strapped Zimbabwe's government public account stood at just $217, finance minister Tendai Biti said on Tuesday.

"Last week when we paid civil servants there was $217 (left) in government coffers," Biti told journalists in the capital Harare, claiming some of them had healthier bank balances than the state.

"The government finances are in paralysis state at the present moment. We are failing to meet our targets."

Zimbabwe's economy went into free-fall at the turn of the millennium, after President Robert Mugabe began seizing white-owned farms.

The move demolished investor confidence in the country, paralysed production, prompted international sanctions and scared off tourists.

After more than a decade -- in which the country suffered hyper-inflation of 231 million percent and infrastructure that crumbled as quickly as prices went up -- the situation is now more stable.

But public finances remain a mess and local business battles against unstable electricity supplies, lack of liquidity and high labour costs.

Zimbabwe's government has warned it does not have enough money to fund a constitutional referendum and elections expected this year.

Biti said that left no choice but to ask the donors for cash.

"We will be approaching the international community," he said.

The country's elections agency said it requires $104 million to organise the vote.

Government's national budget for this year stands at $3.8 billion and the economy is projected to grow 5.0 percent.

The mineral rich country is now using the US dollar and the South African rand.

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Jordan's last PM appointed by king quits

AMMAN, Jordan" Jordan's last prime minister appointed by the king has resigned, making way for a successor who will be elected by the country's new parliament.

The palace says King Abdullah II on Tuesday asked outgoing Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour to stay on as caretaker until the 150-member legislature elected last Wednesday picks the next premier.

The king is also expected to gradually surrender more powers to the parliament, giving it a freer hand in legislation and in monitoring the Cabinet. The process is part of reforms Abdullah initiated two years ago under pressure from street protests demanding less royal authority and more power to lawmakers.

Jordan's fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood - the country's largest opposition group - boycotted the polls to protest an election law it says favors the king's supporters.

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Japan boosts defence budget amid island row

TOKYO: Japan's cabinet on Tuesday approved a $52 billion military budget, a boost in both financial and personnel resources for the first time in years, amid an ongoing territorial row with China.

The budget plan, which will now go before parliament for approval, is 40 billion yen ($441 million) or about 0.8 percent up on the previous year to 4.75 trillion yen ($52 billion), defence ministry officials said.

Excluding some monies related to US bases, it will be the first rise in the pacifist nation's military spending in 11 years, they said.

The ministry will also increase the number of troops by 287. The personnel will be spread throughout the air, ground and maritime self-defence forces, the largest expansion in 20 years, they said.

The extra troops are aimed specifically at "improving readiness of units to ensure intelligence, warning and surveillance and safety in the southwestern region", the ministry said.

The Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands, which China claims as the Diaoyus, are included in this designation.

In the official brochure detailing the defence programme, the ministry said: "North Korea, which is still developing nuclear and ballistic missiles, continues to be the region's critically destabilising factor."

"We need to give substantial consideration to China's activities recently intensifying in the sea and the air surrounding Japan, including its intrusion into territorial waters and air space," it said.

Beijing has repeatedly sent vessels to the disputed waters, prompting calls in Japan for more measures to defend the islands, which are believed to sit atop sizable mineral reserves.

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US F-16 jet goes missing off Italy

ROME: A search is underway for a US F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet that went missing on a training flight off the coast of Italy.

The ANSA news agency said the headquarters of the US 31st Fighter Wing stationed at the Aviano air base in Italy lost contact with the aircraft around 8 pm on Monday, shortly after the pilot reported a problem.

The US aircraft from Aviano as well as units of Italian Coast Guard and air force are involved in the search-and-rescue effort off the coast of Ravenna province in the northwestern part of the Adriatic Sea.

The plane did not carry any weaponry on board during the mission, according to a statement by the US Air Force.

Experts believe the aircraft has crashed in the Adriatic but the pilot could have survived.

The average age of the F-16s, considered the workhorse of the US fighter fleet, is 22 to 24 years.

Over 4,500 aircraft have been built since production was approved in 1976.

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French-led troops control access to Timbuktu

BAMAKO: French-led troops surrounded Mali's fabled desert city of Timbuktu on Monday after seizing its airport in a lightning advance against Islamists who have been driven from key northern strongholds.

French paratroopers swooped in to block any fleeing Islamists while ground troops coming from the south seized the airport in the ancient city which has been one of the bastions of the extremists who have controlled the north for 10 months.

"We control the airport at Timbuktu," a senior officer with the Malian army told AFP. "We did not encounter any resistance."

French army spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard told AFP the troops, backed up by helicopters, had seized control of the so-called Niger Loop -- the area alongside the curve of the Niger River flowing between Timbuktu and Gao -- in less than 48 hours.

A fabled caravan town on the edge of the Sahara desert, Timbuktu was for centuries a key centre of Islamic learning and has become a byword for exotic remoteness in the Western imagination.

The once cosmopolitan town became a dusty outpost for the extremists who forced women to wear veils, whipped and stoned those who violated their version of strict Islamic law, and destroyed ancient Muslim shrines they considered "idolatrous".

A source in a reconnaissance team which first reached Timbuktu on Sunday said Malian and French troops had not yet entered the city, which had suffered destruction as the Islamists fled.

"We are in town but we are not many. But the Islamists caused damages before leaving. They burned houses, and manuscripts. They beat people who were showing their joy."

Residents fleeing Timbuktu were jubilant in the face of the French advance and denounced the regime the Islamists had imposed on them.

"They beat us up when we smoked or listened to music," said Amadou Alassane Mega, a young student. "They will have to pay for what they did to us."

The advance into Timbuktu known as "the City of 333 Saints", which lies 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) north of Mali's capital Bamako, comes a day after French and Malian soldiers seized another Islamist bastion, the eastern town of Gao.

The French defence ministry said a French armoured battalion, Malian troops and soldiers from Niger and Chad were in control of Gao after fighting Saturday in which "several terrorist groups were destroyed or chased to the north".

French warplanes had carried out some 20 air strikes Saturday and Sunday in the Gao and Timbuktu regions, the ministry statement added.

Gao is the biggest of six towns seized by French and Malian troops since they launched their offensive on January 11 to wrest the vast desert north from the Islamists.

The largest town yet to be recaptured is Kidal further north near the Algerian border which was the first to be seized by an alliance of Tuareg rebels and Islamic extremists last year.

Kidal is the home of renowned former Tuareg rebel Iyad Ag Ghaly, the leader of armed Islamist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith).

Mali's lengthy crisis was kickstarted by a Tuareg rebellion for independence in January last year which overwhelmed the weak Malian army and prompted a coup in Bamako in March.

Amid the political vacuum the Tuareg desert nomads and Islamists seized the north in a matter of days. But the extremists had no interest in the Tuareg desire for independence and quickly sidelined their erstwhile allies to install sharia law.

The occupation of an area twice the size of France sparked fears abroad that northern Mali could become a new haven for terror groups, threatening the West as well as neighbouring African countries.

However plans to intervene remained mired in hesitation.

In early January the Islamists broke through into the government-held south, raising fears that the Islamists could seize the capital Bamako and prompting intervention by former colonial power France.

At an African Union summit in Addis Ababa where leaders discussed increasing troop numbers for an African intervention force in Mali, outgoing chairman and Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi criticised the AU's slow response.

France's action, he said, was something "we should have done a long time ago to defend a member country".

Defence chiefs from West African regional grouping ECOWAS agreed Saturday to boost their troop pledges for Mali to 5,700. Chad, which is not a member of the 15-nation bloc, has promised an extra 2,000 soldiers.

France said Sunday it had now deployed 2,900 troops and that 2,700 African soldiers were on the ground in Mali and Niger, but French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault appealed for more aid for the Mali effort.

In the central Mali town of Konna meanwhile, where France opened its offensive 17 days ago, local people showed journalists the graves of civilians killed in the air strikes.

While Konna's deputy mayor Demba Samouka insisted there was no precise death toll available, he said that at most four civilians had died in the air raids, blaming other civilian deaths on Islamist fighters.

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Brazil mourns victims of nightclub fire

SANTA MARIA, BRAZIL: Brazilians on Monday were mourning the victims of a nightclub blaze in a small university town that left more than 230 people dead and over 100 injured, with many still fighting for their lives.

Shocked survivors, mostly science students in Santa Maria, described how scores of revelers were trampled to death or succumbed to smoke inhalation as blocked exits and rising flames caused panic.

Officials said 233 people had been killed, with 116 more injured. Health Minister Alexandre Padilha told reporters the government's priority was "saving the lives that we still can save."

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, visibly shaken by the news, cut short her visit to a Europe-Latin America summit in Chile to fly to the town.

Brazil canceled an event Monday launching a 500-day countdown to next year's World Cup tournament, and the disaster will raise concerns about public safety as Brazil also prepares to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Rio Grande do Sul governor Tarso Genro, who referred to the tragedy as "a sad Sunday," ordered a "broad investigation" of the causes of the fire to find out who was responsible.

The fire broke out around 2:00 am (0400 GMT) Sunday when the nightclub was hosting a university party.

Survivor Michelle Pereira said a member of the band had lifted a flare into the air, which set the ceiling on fire. Flames quickly engulfed the entire room.

"Everyone was pushing and shoving," another survivor, Taynne Vendruscolo, told reporters.

"The fire started out small, but within seconds it exploded. Those who were close to the stage could not get out."

Santa Maria fire chief Guido de Melo said many people were trampled in the rush to get out. Others were suffocated by the smoke.

Club security had blocked people from leaving, sparking a stampede, he added.

Customers said guards at the club had kept the fire exit locked to prevent people from leaving without paying for their drinks.

"It was sheer horror," Mattheus Bortolotto, a young dentist, told local television. "I lost a very dear friend.

"The emergency exits did not work, and then I lost my friend in the confusion. Then a girl died in my arms. I felt her heart stop beating."

The pandemonium inside the club soon spread outside, he said.

"The metal barriers they used to keep people in line on their way in, ended up blocking people from getting out," Bortolotto said.

"People were bumping into each other, crushing each other, falling down. And the people who were at the back of the club were simply trapped."

"A friend of mine managed to get out but then had a heart attack and died," Ana Paula Miller, a 19-year-old engineering student, told AFP.

-- Deadliest in more than a decade --

Firefighters doused the blackened shell of a red brick building with water and used sledgehammers to punch holes in the walls to get people out faster.

But for many, it was already too late.

Victims' bodies were taken to a sports stadium, which police cordoned off to keep sobbing relatives from streaming in.

Left outside, they waited for news of missing loved ones.

"My son was killed. My son was killed," wailed one mother, just before passing out after finding his name on the list of the dead.

"I saw victims who had one side of their face melted," Max Muller, who was walking by and started to film some of the chaotic early morning scenes from outside the club, told AFP.

"I am traumatized. It is hard to forget what I saw. People who were trying to get out who stopped to give other people CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) -- except they didn't know how to do it, and they were breaking people's bones.

"It is horrible to see so many dead people, kids, on the ground; people crying, other people throwing up, who can't breathe.

"Some were ripping people's clothes off to do CPR but had no idea what they were doing," he recalled.

"It's a tragedy for all of us, and I cannot continue here at the summit, because my priority is the Brazilian people," a visibly emotional Rousseff told reporters traveling with her in Santiago.

Federal and local authorities were mobilizing "all resources, so that we do not just recover the bodies but also support families at this time and provide very efficient care to the injured," she added.

The fire regulations permit for the Kiss nightclub expired in August 2011, local media reported, citing the head of the state's fire department.

The university town of Santa Maria lies west of Porto Alegre, one of the World Cup host cities.

In the wake of the disaster, the authorities called off an event dubbed "500 Days until World Cup-2014," planned for Monday in the federal capital Brasilia.

This is the deadliest such blaze in more than a decade, since a fire at a shopping center and discotheque in the central Chinese city of Luoyang killed more than 300 people in 2000.

Argentina suffered a similar tragedy in 2004 when a fire at a Buenos Aires nightclub killed 194 people.

Argentine health officials announced on Sunday they would send Brazil available reserves of human skin for future transplants to burn victims.

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Three dead, dramatic rooftop rescues in Oz floods

BRISBANE: Helicopters plucked dozens of stranded Australians to safety in dramatic rooftop rescues Monday as severe floods swept the northeast, killing three people and inundating thousands of homes.

The body of one man carried off by rising waters was found in the Queensland state capital Brisbane and another further north at Gympie, following the earlier discovery of an elderly man who died near the city of Bundaberg.

A pregnant woman and her three-year-old son were hospitalised after a large tree fell on them as they were walking Monday morning in Brisbane. They were reported to have head injuries, with the child in critical condition.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman announced that an acute emergency was unfolding in Bundaberg, home to about 50,000 people some 360 kilometres (220 miles) north of Brisbane, with people scrambling to get out as the river hit a record peak.

One family zipped their infant son into a waterproof bag to be winched to safety by helicopter as floods surrounded their car on Sunday at Biloela, west of Bundaberg, with the 14-month-old too small for the airlift harness.

Newman said authorities were now in "uncharted territory", with debris-laden floodwaters roaring through the town at such speeds that water rescues were no longer viable.

There were fears homes could be ripped from foundations and police issued a mandatory evacuation order, warning there was an "imminent danger of people being killed and drowned".

Some 60 patients at the local hospital were shifted to upper floors, with more than 2,000 houses flooded and "many thousands" of residents affected.

Newman said a "significant number" of people were soon to be trapped indoors.

"We are at a point where we've never seen floodwaters like this before," he told reporters.

"We're very concerned that the velocity of the water and the rise in water levels means that literally houses... could be swept away. This is a very real prospect."

Fourteen helicopters, including two army Black Hawks, would fly rescue missions until nightfall and Newman said the government was scrambling to find extra aircraft.

"We've got to pull all stops out to do this before it gets dark," he said.

Thousands have evacuated their homes across Queensland and neighbouring New South Wales with widespread flood warnings in the southern path of ex-tropical cyclone Oswald.

Pounding whipped up huge ocean froth on the Gold and Sunshine Coast regions, with foam up to one metre deep in some areas of the shore.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the "wild weather had broken a lot of hearts", with some Queensland residents experiencing their third flood in two years, including the devastating 2011 inundation which killed 35 people.

"As this weather moves into New South Wales can I reiterate to everyone, it is very important you keep yourself safe," said Gillard.

"We have seen three fatalities and... we have got grave concerns for a number of others."

Floodwaters were rising in Brisbane, home to some two million people, though Newman said the Brisbane River was expected to peak seven metres lower than in 2011, when flooding brought the city to a standstill for several days.

Rural towns were isolated by floodwaters in neighbouring New South Wales state, where hundreds of millimetres of rain and strong winds were expected in the coming hours, including in Sydney.

Cyclones and floods are common in Australia's northeast during the warmer summer months. A series of huge storms wreaked havoc across Queensland in early 2011, devastating large agricultural districts and major coal mines.

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Berlusconi defends Mussolini for backing Hitler

ROME: Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi says Benito Mussolini did much good despite his regime's anti-Jewish laws.

Berlusconi also defended Mussolini for siding with Hitler, saying the late fascist leader likely reasoned that German power would expand so it would be better for Italy to ally itself with Germany.

He was speaking to reporters Sunday on the sidelines of a ceremony in Milan to commemorate the Holocaust. When Germany's Nazi regime occupied Italy during World War II, thousands from the tiny Italian Jewish community were deported to death camps. In 1938, before the war's outbreak, Mussolini's regime passed anti-Jewish laws, barring them from universities and many professions, among other bans.

Berlusconi called the laws Mussolini's "worst fault" but insisted that in many other things "he did good."

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Mass funeral for 37 Egypt riot victims

PORT SAID: Tens of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of the restive Egyptian city of Port Said on Sunday for a mass funeral for most of the 37 people killed in rioting a day earlier, chanting slogans against Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

Violence erupted briefly when some in the crowd fired guns and police responded with volleys of tear gas, witnesses said. State television reported 110 were injured.

"We are very worried about what may happen after the burial," said local youth activist Rasha Hamouda, noting the city was fraught with tension.

There was also a funeral in Cairo for one of two policemen killed in the Port Said violence a day earlier. Several policemen grieving for two colleagues heckled Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of the force, when he arrived for their funeral, according to witnesses. The angry officers screamed at the minister that he was only at the funeral for the TV cameras — a highly unusual show of dissent in Egypt, where the police force maintains military-like discipline.

Ibrahim hurriedly left and the funeral proceeded without him.

The violence in the city, about 140 miles northeast of Cairo, broke out on Saturday after a court on Saturday convicted and sentenced 21 defendants to death for their roles in a mass soccer riot in a Port Said stadium on Feb. 1, 2012 that left 74 people dead. Most of those sentenced to death were local soccer fans from Port Said. The 21 were convicted on murder charges and the court is to rule on the remainder of the 73 defendants in March.

The riots stemmed mostly from animosity between police and die-hard Egyptian soccer fans, known as Ultras, who have become highly politicized. The Ultras frequently confront police and were also part of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak's regime two years ago.

They were also at the forefront of protests against the military rulers who took over from Mubarak and are now again on the front lines of protests against the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, the country's first freely elected leader.

Mourners chanted "There is no God but Allah," and "Morsi is God's enemy" as the funeral procession made its way through the city after prayers for the dead at the city's Mariam Mosque. Women clad in black led the chants, which were quickly picked up by the rest of the mourners.

There were no police or army troops in sight. But the funeral procession briefly halted after gunfire rang out. Security officials said the gunfire came from several mourners who opened fire at the Police Club next to the cemetery.

A witness said the police responded to the gunfire with volleys of tear gas. The witness and the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation in the city on the Mediterranean at the northern tip of the Suez Canal.

Survivors and witnesses of the Port Said soccer melee blame Mubarak loyalists for the violence, saying they had a hand in instigating the killings. The troubles erupted after Port Said's home team Al-Masry beat Cairo's Al-Ahly 3-1. Some witnesses said "hired thugs" wearing green T-shirts and posing as Al-Masry fans led the attacks.

Other witnesses said at the very least, police were responsible for gross negligence in the soccer violence, which killed 74 people, most of them Al-Ahly fans.

Anger at police was evident in Port Said, home to most of the 73 men accused of involvement in the bloodshed.

The trial was in Cairo and Judge Sobhi Abdel-Maguid did not give his reasoning when he handed down the guilty verdicts and sentences for 21 defendants. Executions in Egypt are usually carried out by hanging.

Verdicts for the remaining 52 defendants, including nine security officials, are to be delivered on March 9. Some have been charged with murder and others with assisting the attackers. All the defendants — who were not present in the courtroom Saturday for security reasons — can appeal the verdict.

In Port Said on Sunday, army troops backed by armored vehicles staked out positions at key government facilities to protect state interests and try to restore order.

The military issued a statement urging Port Said residents to exercise restraint and protect public property, but also warning that troops would deal "firmly" with anyone who "terrorizes" citizens or infringes upon the nation's security and stability.

Rioters on Saturday attacked the prison where the defendants were being held and tried to storm police stations and government offices around the city. Health officials say at least 37 people were killed, including two policemen, in rioting on Saturday.

The clashes in Port Said were the latest in a bout of unrest across the country that has left a total of 48 people dead since Friday. That death toll includes 11 people killed in clashes between police and protesters marking the second anniversary of the uprising that overthrew Mubarak after nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule.

Clashes broke out in Cairo for the fourth straight day on Sunday, with protesters and police near central Tahrir Square, birthplace of the 2011 uprising. Police fired tear gas while protesters pelted them with rocks.

The clashes show how turmoil was deepening in Egypt nearly seven months after Morsi took office. Critics say Morsi has failed to carry out promised reforms of the judiciary and police, and claim little has improved in the two years since the uprising.

At the heart of the rising opposition toward Morsi's government is a newly adopted constitution, which was ratified in a nationwide referendum.

Opponents claim the document has an Islamist slant. It was drafted hurriedly by the president's allies without the participation of representatives of liberals and minority Christians on the panel that wrote the charter.

Protesters on the streets this past week demanded the formation of a national unity government, early presidential elections and amendments to disputed clauses in the constitution.

Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which he hails, counter that the opposition was seeking to overturn the results of democratic and free elections. The Brotherhood, a well-organized and established political group in Egypt for decades, has emerged as by far the most powerful force in post-Mubarak Egypt.

As the situation in Port Said spiraled out of control Saturday, police disappeared from the city's streets, residents and security officials said, staying put in their camps, police stations and the city's security headquarters.

The military then dispatched troops to the city, taking up positions at vital state facilities, including the local power and water stations, the city's main courthouse, the local government building and the city prison. Navy sailors were guarding the local offices of the Suez Canal company.

Navy vessels were escorting merchant ships sailing through the international waterway, a vital income earner for Egypt's beleaguered economy. Military helicopters were flying over the canal to ensure the safety of shipping, according to Suez Canal spokesman Tareq Hassanein.

Residents said Port Said was quiet overnight except for intermittent bursts of gunfire. The city was still on edge early Sunday — but streets were largely deserted, stores were closed for the second successive day, and some hotels asked guests to leave, fearing more violence.

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Will attack Syria if rebels get chemical arms: Israel

JERUSALEM: Any sign that Syria's grip on its chemical weapons is slipping as it battles armed rebels could trigger Israeli military strikes, Israel's vice-premier said on Sunday.

Silvan Shalom confirmed a media report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had last week convened a meeting of security chiefs to discuss the civil war in Syria and the state of its suspected chemical arsenal.

Israel and Nato countries say Syria has stocks of chemical warfare agents at four sites. Syria is cagey about whether it has such arms but says if it had it would keep them secure and use them only to fend off foreign attack.

The Israeli meeting on Wednesday had not been publicly announced and was seen as unusual as it came while votes were being counted from Israel's parliamentary election the day before, which Netanyahu's party list won narrowly.

Should Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas or rebels battling forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad obtain Syria's chemical weapons, Shalom told Israel's Army Radio: "It would dramatically change the capabilities of those organisations."

Such a development would be "a crossing of all red lines that would require a different approach, including even preventive operations," he said, alluding to military intervention for which Israeli generals have said plans have been readied.

"The concept, in principle, is that this (chemical weapons transfer) must not happen," Shalom said. "The moment we begin to understand that such a thing is liable to happen, we will have to make decisions."

Addressing his cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu said he intended to put together "the broadest and most stable government as possible in order, first of all, to meet the significant security threats that face the State of Israel".

Difficult coalition talks could be ahead for Netanyahu with factions representing widely different sectors of the population.

'Coming apart'

In his public remarks at the cabinet session, Netanyahu pointed to "what is happening in Iran and its proxies and at what is happening in other areas, with the deadly weapons in Syria, which is increasingly coming apart.

"In the east, north and south, everything is in ferment and we must be prepared, strong and determined in the face of all possible developments," Netanyahu said, in apparent reference to Iran, Syria and Egypt.

Raising the regional stakes, Tehran, among Assad's few allies and itself long the subject of Israeli military threats over its nuclear programme, said on Saturday it would deem any attack on Syria an attack on Iran.

Interviewed on Army Radio, civil defence minister Avi Dichter said Syria was on the verge of collapse. But asked whether Israel perceived an imminent threat, Dichter said: "No, not yet. I suppose that when things pose a danger to us, the State of Israel will know about it."

France, among the most vocal backers of Syria's rebels, said last week there were no signs Assad was about to be overthrown.

An Israeli government security adviser told Reuters on Sunday Syria had taken new prominence in strategic planning "because of the imminence of the threat. There the WMDs ( weapons of mass destruction) are ready and could be turned against us at short notice."

Syria is widely believed to have built up the arsenal to offset Israel's reputed nuclear weapons, among other reasons.

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Myanmar rejects US criticism over ethnic conflict

YANGON, Myanmar: Myanmar has rejected the latest US criticism of its conflict with ethnic Kachin rebels, and deplores that Washington still calls the country by its old name, Burma, according to a statement published Saturday.

A Myanmar foreign ministry statement published in the state-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper "rejected" a news release issued Thursday by the US Embassy that had expressed "deep concern" over the ongoing violence in Kachin state in northern Myanmar.

The US statement also noted that according to media and NGO reports, Myanmar's army "continues a military offensive in the vicinity of the Kachin Independence Army headquarters in Laiza" despite the government's own unilateral cease-fire announcement on Jan 19.

The exchange is a reminder that the rapprochement between the countries is still far from complete as Myanmar transitions from ostracized military state to a fledging democracy, even though Washington has eased most sanctions it imposed on the previous army regime because of its repressive policies.

The foreign ministry said it strongly rejected the US assertions because they "could cause misunderstanding in the international community" and because they failed to mention anything about "terrorist actions and atrocities committed by the KIA" and mentioned only army actions.

The military has been actively engaging the Kachin in combat for 1 1/2 years, but fighting escalated recently when the government began using fighter planes and helicopter gunships in its attacks starting on Christmas Day. It says it was acting in self-defense because Kachin attacks kept it from supplying its forward bases, but the Kachin says they were seeking to stop the army from attacking their headquarters in the town of Laiza, near the border with China.

The Kachin, like Myanmar's other ethnic minorities, have long sought greater autonomy from the central government. They are the only major ethnic rebel group that has not reached a truce with Thein Sein's administration.

The government also upbraided the embassy for the use of the terms "Burma" and "Burmese Government" in its statement and pointed out that even President Obama during his visit here in November and in an address to a Southeast Asian-US summit meeting had referred to the country as "Myanmar."

The statement said Myanmar "strongly objects" to the use of "Burma" by the US embassy, saying that it is "unethical" and that government hopes the embassy avoids actions that may affect mutual understanding and cooperation that has recently been restored between the countries.

The then-ruling junta changed the country's name to Myanmar from Burma in 1988, a year after a failed pro-democracy uprising led to the installation of a strict military government. Pro-democracy activists mostly preferred to use the old name Burma to indicate their rejection of the legitimacy of military rule, a stance also taken by the US and British governments.

Washington was the leading state critic of military rule, which ended in 2011 after a pro-military party won a general election and the junta's prime minister, retired Gen. Thein Sein took office as president. he has instituted political and economic reforms, but his critics feel that the civilian government is just a front for continued military domination from behind the scene.

The previous military junta frequently accuses Western powers of interfering in the country's affairs, and Myanmar's pro-democracy movement of collaborating with them.

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Mali's dirty war: A child soldier's tale

SEVARE (MALI): The boy sits with his knees tucked under his chest on the concrete floor of the police station here, his adolescent face a tableau of fear. He's still garbed in the knee-length tunic he was ordered to wear by the Islamic extremist who recruited him.

It's these same clothes, styled after those worn by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century, which gave him away when he tried to flee earlier this week. They have now become his prison garb.

Adama Drabo is 16, and his recruitment into the ranks of a group designated as a terrorist organization, followed by his violent interrogation at the hands of the Malian army, underscores the obstacles faced by France as it tries to wash its former West African colony clean of the al-Qaida-linked fighters occupying it.

"In terms of the rules of engagement, you have to think to yourself, what will you do if a child comes up to you wearing an explosive vest? What do you do if a 12-year-old is manning a checkpoint?" says Rudolph Atallah, former director of counterterrorism for Africa at the Pentagon during the Bush administration. "It's a very difficult situation."

France, which now has around 2,500 troops on the ground, plunged headfirst into the conflict in Mali two weeks ago, after the Islamist groups that have controlled the nation's northern half since last year began an aggressive push southward. The French soldiers are equipped with night vision goggles, anti-tank mines and laser-guided bombs. However, their enemy includes the hundreds of children, some as young as 11, who have been conscripted into the rebel army.

Among those the French will have to fight are boys like Adama, the uneducated, eldest child of a poor family of rice growers, who until recently spent his days plowing fields with oxen near the village of N'Denbougou. Living just 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the central Malian town of Niono, which has become one of the frontlines in the recent war, Adama fits the profile of the types of children the Islamists have successfully recruited. His village has a single mosque, and unlike the moderate form of Islam practiced in much of Mali, the one he and his family attended preached Wahabism.

"We have observed a pattern of recruitment of child soldiers from villages that for many years have practiced a very strict form of Islam, referred to as Wahabism," says Corinne Dufka, senior researcher for West Africa at Human Rights Watch. "We estimate that hundreds of children have been recruited."

The groups allied with al-Qaida started recruiting children soon after they seized control of northern Mali last April. Rebel leaders quoted verses from the Quran which they claim describe children as the purest apprentices. Since then witnesses have described seeing children staffing checkpoints, riding in patrol vehicles, carrying out searches of cars stopped at roadblocks, as well as preparing tea and cooking food for the fighters in the towns controlled by the insurgents, says Dufka.

The United Nations children's agency said late last year that it had been able to corroborate at least 175 reported cases of child soldiers in northern Mali, bought from their impoverished parents for between $1,000 and $1,200 per child. Malian human rights officials put the total number of children recruited by the Islamists considerably higher at 1,000 — and that was before the French intervention.

Adama, who is now being held at the Sevare gendarmerie, was hired as a cook two weeks ago by Islamist fighters in Douentza, a city controlled by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad, or MUJAO. Its members have been linked to the recent terrorist attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria, which ended in the death of at least 37 hostages, according to the Algerian government.

The teenager claims he didn't know he was working for a terrorist group, even though the insurgents who ate the macaroni he cooked carried guns, wore beards and dressed in the unfamiliar Gulf-style clothes they gave him. He says he joined them only for the money they promised they would pay at the end of each month. The police holding him say he was promised around $200 a month, several times the average monthly salary here.

Adama explains that his friends in Niono said they knew people in Sevare who would give them work. So they took a Peugeot 207 taxi to reach the town.

"It was there in the town that we met some people and they hired us to cook for them," he says. "They said that at the end of each month we would get paid ... And so we started cooking for them."

He says that even though some of the fighters in their entourage went to fight in the Niono area, he was unaware of their battle plans. The men spoke Arabic and Tamashek, a Tuareg language, which he did not understand.

One day, when he went to the corner store, the shop owner told him a war was on, he says.

"I told my friend, 'Even if the month isn't over yet, we need to get out of here'. We walked to the next village, where we found an old man there, and we asked him if he could please give us some water? The old man said he couldn't give us any water, because we're rebels. We said, 'We're not rebels. Give us some water.' It was then that a man on a motorcycle came by. The motorcyclist said that we are wearing the clothes of the Islamic fighters."

The boys tried to run.

The friend got away. Adama was handed over to the Malian military, which in recent days has been accused of executing dozens of suspected Islamists, including a group of six men who arrived in Sevare without identity cards. Adama may have been saved by the international outcry that followed the reported executions this week, says Atallah, putting immense diplomatic pressure on Mali's ill-trained and often incompetent army to respect human rights conventions.

"I was frightened," says Adama. "They said they were going to kill me ... They said this several times."

During the interrogation, especially on the first day, the soldiers threatened to execute Adama if he did not tell the truth, he says. They hit him, he says, and slapped him across his face. It was only on Friday, according to Adama, that the soldiers told him they would not kill him.

"For four days, they kept me in jail with two big people," he says. "I feel somewhat reassured now, but not totally reassured. Because I am still not free."

Child soldiers have been part of the fabric of African conflicts for decades now. In Liberia's civil war more than 10 years ago, drugged 12 and 13-year-olds were famously photographed toting automatic weapons and teddy bears. However, the standoff this time is between a Western army bound by the Geneva Convention and western values on human rights, and an enemy that includes hundreds of children.

One of the most active groups in northern Mali is al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the terror network's affiliate in Africa, which originated in Algeria. In 2008, the group released a video showing a cheerful 15-year-old in Algeria who was suffering from a terminal illness, Atallah says. The Islamists convinced the boy that the best thing he could do with what remained of his life was to die for Allah, according to Atallah, who saw the recording.

"The video shows him smiling," he says. "They taught him how to drive a van. And then they filmed the van as it left, just before he detonated himself. I wouldn't put it past them to do this again."

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World powers asked for delay in nuclear talks: Iran

TEHRAN: Iran on Saturday blamed world powers for delays in long-stalled talks over its controversial nuclear programme, after western diplomats said Iranian uncertainty over the venue had delayed the negotiations.

State broadcaster IRIB said the world powers asked Iran to postpone the talks from agreed dates in January to February, through deputy EU foreign policy chief Helga Schmid who spoke to Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri late on Friday.

World powers "are not ready to hold the negotiation in January," IRIB quoted Schmid at telling Bagheri by telephone. "She suggested a new date in February."

But "Bagheri stressed that Iran is ready to hold the talks, asking the other party to remain committed to the date agreed for talks in January," it added.

Schmid's boss, Catherine Ashton, represents the P5+1 group of the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France plus Germany in talks on Iran's nuclear ambitions which Western nations suspect is aimed at developing the bomb.

Tehran denies the charge, saying its nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful.

The two sides had reportedly agreed to renew the negotiations at the end of January, but they have failed to agree on a venue.

European diplomats yesterday voiced disappointment that "there was still no meeting."

A European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that "it seems more likely now that the next round will take place in February."

The last high-level talks attended by Iran, which ended without breakthrough, were in Moscow in June, with Tehran rejecting P5+1 calls for it to scale back its nuclear programme and asking for relief from sanctions that began to bite in 2012.

Iran said this week that Cairo has welcomed Tehran's suggestion that the Egyptian capital host the talks.

A spokeswoman for Ashton, Maja Kocijancic, said yesterday that contacts on when and where the next talks will be held "are still taking place."

Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear weapons state, has refused to rule out taking military action against Iran to prevent it from also acquiring the bomb.

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US Senators introduce legislation after Malala

WASHINGTON: Two top American Senators have introduced a legislation in the name of MalalaYousafzai, a 15-year-old Pakistani peace activist who was shot by the Taliban, to provide scholarship to girls from Pakistan.

Introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer and Mary Landrieu, the Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act is designed to expand scholarship opportunities for disadvantaged young women in Pakistan.

The Boxer-Landrieu bill would require a 30 per cent increase in the number of scholarships awarded under the program for the next four years, and that these additional scholarships be awarded solely to women.

The measure would also expand the range of academic disciplines that scholarship recipients could pursue to improve graduates' chances of obtaining meaningful employment.

"Malala Yousafzai bravely advocated for the education of women and girls, something that should be a basic human right," Boxer said.

"This bill not only recognises Malala's incredible courage, but will ensure that more young women in Pakistan are able to pursue their dreams through higher education," she said.

Malala was brutally attacked on October 9, 2012 by a Taliban gunman when she was returning from school. Currently, she is recovering from near-fatal injuries in UK.

"The attack on Malala Yousafzai last October reminds us of the difficult obstacles women and girls face around the world every day, including poverty, low social standing and violence, in their quest to espouse the basic freedoms enjoyed by American women," Senator Landrieu said.

"Providing an education is absolutely critical for the future of every girl and society as a whole. When women and men have equal access to educational resources, economies flourish, families strengthen and societies move forward," she said.

"I am proud to introduce the Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act alongside Senator Boxer and to dedicate it to Malala and the millions of other girls and women who risk their lives every day to gain an education. By lifting up the rights of women internationally, we can strengthen women's rights here at home, too," Landrieu said.

The Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act would expand and enhance an existing United States Agency for International Development (USAID) scholarship program called the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program.

The USAID program awards scholarships for university studies in agriculture or business administration to economically disadvantaged young men and women from rural areas of Pakistan. To date, of the 1,807 scholarships awarded, only 25 per cent of the recipients have been women.

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Calls for Syria action take centre stage at Davos

DAVOS (Switzerland): Global political and business leaders heard calls for urgent action over Syria's escalating civil war on Friday as the Arab world took centre stage at the Davos forum.

Jordan's King Abdullah II was to address the world's elite at the Swiss ski resort and regional government chiefs were to discuss transformations in Arab countries, on the second anniversary of Egypt's revolution.

Regional experts and diplomats meanwhile warned that Syria's conflict was threatening to settle into a long and bloody war and urged the international community to take more action to stop the violence.

"We have something like a military stalemate on the ground and this can continue for a long time," said Ghassan Salame, dean of the Paris School of International Affairs and former Lebanese culture minister.

"Don't underestimate the possibility of a protracted war that takes us into years and years," he said, noting that few expected Lebanon's 15-year civil war to last for so long.

"Today there are more than 60,000 dead... Can we wait until it's double that? Can we wait until it's triple that? This is a shame on all of us," said Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief and ex-envoy to the United States and Britain.

He said the global community needed to support Syria's opposition against President Bashar al-Assad, including by supplying them with weapons.

"I assume we are sending weapons, and if we are not sending weapons then it would be a terrible mistake on our part. In Syria you have to level the playing field," he said.

Calls were also issued for more humanitarian assistance both inside Syria and in neighbouring countries, where more than 600,000 refugees have fled.

International Committee of the Red Cross chief Peter Maurer said aid groups were finding it difficult to deliver assistance inside Syria and that there needed to be "respect for international humanitarian laws and principles".

"We are definitely very much concerned by what we witness on the ground, by the expansion of the violence... by the depth of the crisis and of course the difficulty to reach people in need," he said.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, whose country is hosting 300,000 Syrian refugees, said greater efforts were needed to help countries that have taken in those fleeing the war.

"There is a lot more that can be done by the international community to help us," he said.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country had already spent about $500 million (370 million euros) on assisting more than 160,000 Syrian refugees and that concerted action was needed.

"This is our historic duty," he said. "All of us have to act together."

Abdullah's speech was to come after preliminary election results Thursday showed pro-regime loyalists and independent businessmen set to sweep a parliamentary vote in Jordan.

The poll was touted as a focal point of pro-democracy moves by the king, but was shunned by Islamists who want wholesale reforms.

Later the premiers of Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia and the Palestinian Territories will discuss the transformations wrought by the Arab Spring, as protesters gathered in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on the second anniversary of Egypt's uprising.

Huge demonstrations were expected in response to a call from the secular-leaning opposition for protests against the country's Islamist government.

UN leader Ban Ki-moon on Thursday also used his trip to Davos to make a fresh appeal to members of the Security Council to overcome their divisions and find a solution to the civil war in Syria.

Ban said it would be an "abdication" of the world body's responsibilities if it fails to unify over the crisis.

"The alternative -- letting the sides fight it out, resigning ourselves to Syria's destruction with all its regional implications -- is too costly and unacceptable," he added.

"That would be an abdication of our collective responsibility to protect," Ban said. "The world, and above all the Security Council, must uphold its responsibilities."

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French, Malian troops seize northern Islamist towns

BAMAKO: French and Malian troops advanced on the key Islamist stronghold of Gao on Friday after recapturing the northern town of Hombori, as the extremists struck back by bombing a strategic bridge.

The French-led assault against the radical Islamists controlling northern Mali entered its third week with a strong push into the vast semi-arid zone amid rising humanitarian concerns for people in the area facing a dire food crisis.

"At present, Malian and French soldiers are in Hombori. There are no longer any Islamists on the ground," said a teacher in the town which lies 920 kilometres (575 miles) north of the capital Bamako and 200 kilometres west of Gao.

A Malian security source said the troops would press on to the eastern city of Gao, one of the three major northern towns along with Kidal and Timbuktu, where the al-Qaida-linked Islamists have imposed brutal sharia for 10 months.

Two French men were kidnapped in Hombori in November last year and are still in captivity. The al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed the abduction.

The security source added that in the west, the French-led forces who had recaptured the town of Diabaly on Monday, were pushing towards the town of Lere with the aim of "taking control of Timbuktu" which lies further north.

Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal were seized by an alliance of Tuareg rebels -- who wanted to declare independence of the north -- and hardline Islamist groups in April last year.

The Islamists hijacked the rebellion and sidelined the Tuaregs to implement radical Islamic laws, flogging, stoning and executing transgressors, forbidding music and television and forcing women to wear veils.

Mounting concerns on rights abuses

France swept to the aid of the weakened Malian army on January 11 as the Islamists pushed south towards the capital Bamako amid rising fears the zone could become an Afghanistan-like haven for terrorism.

They have bombarded both Gao and Timbuktu with airstrikes, sending the Islamists fleeing.

However the insurgents remained on the offensive, blowing up a key bridge linking Gao to neighbouring Niger on Friday, where more than 2,000 Chadian soldiers and 500 troops from Niger are being deployed to open a second front against the Islamists from the east.

"The Islamists dynamited the Tassiga bridge. No one can pass to Niger or come to Gao," said the owner of a transport business, Abdou Maiga.

A security source from Niger confirmed the strike.

A Malian trader, Oumar Maiga, told AFP by telephone that a truck headed towards the bridge had failed to notice it was no longer there and crashed, killing two and injuring three.

Aid groups warned of rising food insecurity as fighting escalated in the drought-wracked Sahel.

French aid group Action Against Hunger (ACF) raised fears "that an armed ground intervention from Niger will cut the last access route to supply basic goods (food and medicine) to people in the region," a statement said.

The French-led offensive has received broad international support, but there has also been increasing alarm about reports of rights abuses by Malian soldiers against ethnic Tuaregs and Arabs.

"Like in previous northern Malian conflicts, many civilians of Arab and Touareg origin have been targeted by the military simply because of their ethnicity and unsubstantiated rumours that they are protecting the rebels, said Yacouba Kone, of the UK-based Christian Aid.

The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues said at least 31 people had been executed in the central town of Sevare, and some bodies dumped in wells, according to local researchers.

Meanwhile west African defence chiefs planned to review progress on the limping deployment of their forces to Mali at an emergency meeting in Ivory Coast on Saturday.

The Economic Community of West African States has pledged more than 4,500 soldiers to help Mali retake its Islamist-occupied north, but the deployment has been delayed by financing and logistical problems.

An additional 2,000 soldiers from Chad, which is not an ECOWAS member, are also to be deployed.

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Spain's El Pais apologizes over fake Chavez image

MADRID: Spain's leading newspaper El Pais apologized on Thursday after publishing a front-page photograph supposedly of ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in his hospital bed, and then discovering the patient was actually someone else.

The dramatic photograph, which claimed to show Chavez lying in a Cuban hospital after his cancer operation with tubes emerging from his mouth, sparked a furious reaction from Venezuela.

"It is as grotesque as it is false," Venezuelan information minister Ernesto Villegas said in a comment on his official Twitter account. The photograph was actually taken from a video of an operation posted on YouTube, he said.

El Pais, Spain's best selling newspaper and one of the most influential in the Spanish-speaking world, said the photograph remained on its online site for about half an hour before being withdrawn when the error was discovered.

The newspaper also halted distribution of Thursday's paper edition from newsstands, though some copies were sold.

"El Pais apologises to its readers for the harm caused. The newspaper has opened an investigation to determine the circumstances of what happened and the errors that may have been committed in verifying the photograph."

El Pais said it received the photo from Gtres Online news agency, which claimed the image was of the Venezuelan leader.

It stressed that the caption on the photograph had emphasised that El Pais was unable to independently verify the circumstances, the place and date of the photograph.

El Pais said print editions of the newspaper could be unavailable to readers because of the interruption to distribution.

Chavez, who has been convalescing in Cuba since his fourth round of cancer surgery, has not been seen in public since December 10 and official information about his health has been sketchy.

The Venezuelan leader was too sick to attend his scheduled inauguration on January 10, but in recent days officials have said he has been making encouraging progress.

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Global elite to confront British PM on EU plan

DAVOS: British Prime Minister David Cameron faces a frosty reception from the global elite at the annual Davos meeting on Thursday after his vow to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.

The World Economic Forum in the snowy Swiss ski resort will see top politicians and business leaders pursue talks on whether they have seen the back of the global financial crisis.

But that theme threatens to go off-piste, with both Cameron and his finance minister George Osborne due to speak one day after the British leader angered his main European partners with his plan for a referendum by the end of 2017.

German Chancellor and EU powerbroker Angela Merkel is also scheduled to address the annual forum, along with a host of other leaders from the 27-nation bloc that Cameron described as needing wide-ranging reforms.

His referendum vow has complicated things at a time when the politicians and business leaders at Davos had hoped that Europe's economy might have finally turned a corner after the three-year eurozone debt crisis.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday there had been stabilisation in the markets while Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said things had changed from a year ago.

Monti also said that he believed the British public would vote to stay in the EU in any referendum such as the one Cameron promised in his long-awaited speech in London on Wednesday.

Cameron will however be seeking support from fellow European leaders for his plans to renegotiate the terms of Britain's troubled EU membership before giving the British public a vote on the new agreements.

The European reaction has been cold so far, with the continent's power couple France and Germany both warning Britain it could not expect to pick and choose its rules.

Cameron — who speaks at 0930 GMT followed by Osborne four hours later — will hope Merkel keeps up the conciliatory note she sounded immediately after his speech, saying she was prepared to hear his "wishes" and calling for "compromise".

Merkel will speak at Davos at 1315 GMT on Thursday, while Monti, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, Dutch premier Mark Rutte and their Polish counterpart Donald Tusk are also due to address the forum.

A broader global outlook will also feature at Davos on Thursday, however, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates, Jordan's Queen Rania joining up with Cameron to discuss development goals for the future.

The crisis in Mali, where French forces are helping African troops fight Islamist militants, will also be discussed while Israeli President Shimon Peres and deputy prime minister Ehud Barak are to address the forum.

No formal decisions are taken at Davos but corporate deals are often sewn up on the sidelines and presidents and prime ministers huddle to thrash out pressing issues.

The invitation-only meeting is also known for its informal luncheons and lavish cocktail parties, often hosted by corporate sponsors and with exclusive guest lists, where political and business leaders can network and mingle.

For its annual invasion from the world's most powerful people, the snow-covered resort goes into lockdown, with around 5,000 police and military guarding the venue and helicopters buzzing overhead.

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Islands row: Japan fires water cannon at Taiwanese

TAIPEI: A boat with Taiwanese activists headed for disputed Japanese-controlled islands turned back Thursday after coast guard vessels from the two sides converged and duelled with water cannon.

The boat, carrying seven people including four Taiwanese activists, gave up a plan to land on the East China Sea islands after being blocked by Japanese coast guard vessels as it sailed within 17 nautical miles of the archipelago.

"We fired water cannon at each other," Taiwanese coast guard spokesman Shih Yi-che said of the confrontation.

The disputed islands, in an area where the seabed is believed to harbour valuable mineral reserves, are known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. Both China and Taiwan claim them.

As the standoff unfolded, three Chinese surveillance vessels were positioned a few nautical miles off, the Taiwanese coast guard said.

It added that it was the first time ships from China had been spotted near a Taiwanese-Japanese incident, and that it had sent a radio message to the three boats to keep their distance in order not to complicate matters.

The incident came at a time of growing regional concern over the intensified friction over the islands between China and Japan, with both Beijing and Tokyo recently scrambling fighter jets to assert their claims to the area.

The Japanese coast guard confirmed that it took action after encountering the Taiwanese vessel.

"Our patrol boat carried out restrictions on the vessel such as blocking its path and discharging water," it said in a statement.

"The vessel left our country's contiguous zone at around 1:30 pm (0430 GMT) and continued sailing west-southwest away from the Senkakus."

The activists, who set off in the early hours and were expected to return to Taiwan at about 7pm (1100 GMT), had hoped to place a statue of the Goddess of the Sea on the islands, to protect Taiwanese fishermen in the area.

They had also intended to "maintain sovereignty" in defiance of Japan's control, said Hsieh Mang-lin, the Taiwanese chairman of the Chinese Association for Protecting the Diaoyutais (Diaoyu Islands).

Taiwan's coast guard said four of its vessels on routine patrols in the area had protected the activists' boat.

"The coast guard will protect our people's voluntary actions to defend the Diaoyu islands. coast guard vessels will go wherever the fishing boat is... to defend our sovereignty and protect our fishing rights," it said in a statement.

A Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said officials at the nation's de facto embassy in Taipei, established in the absence of formal relations, had been in touch with the Taiwanese government about the incident.

"We have repeatedly called on the Taiwan side to take proper action in order to prevent an unfavourable situation from arising in the favourable Japan-Taiwan relations," he said.

coast guard vessels from Japan and Taiwan also exchanged water cannon barrages in September after dozens of Taiwanese boats were escorted by patrol ships into the islands' waters.

Previous activist landings have resulted in the arrest and deportation of those setting foot on what Japan says has been its indisputable territory for more than a century.

The rocky island outposts have been the scene of a diplomatic tussle between Japan and China for months.

Japan's government nationalised three of them in September by taking them out of private Japanese ownership.

Since then, Beijing has repeatedly sent government ships into the waters. In December a Chinese government plane overflew them, leading Japan to scramble fighter jets.

Earlier this month both militaries had jets in the area and Japanese newspapers have reported that Tokyo is mulling allowing its pilots to fire warning shots.

While most commentators believe Asia's two largest economies will find some way to work around the problem, which has rattled relations for decades, some are warning that a mis-step could lead to armed confrontation.

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No plan for mass evacuation from Syria: Russia

MOSCOW: Russia's foreign minister says that Moscow has no plans to launch a large-scale evacuation of its citizens from Syria, after 77 Russians left the troubled country and were flown out to Moscow.

Sergey Lavrov said that some 1,000 of tens of thousands of Russians residing in Syria want to leave the country in the midst of civil war that so far has killed over 60,000 people.

Lavrov said that Russia already had pulled out families of diplomats from Syria but has no immediate plan to reduce its Embassy staff, adding that there are contingency plans if the situation changes.

Russia has been the main protector of Syrian President Bashar Assad, shielding him from the United Nations sanctions over his crackdown on an uprising that began in March 2011.

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N Korea may go for nuclear test again

SEOUL: North Korea's nuclear agitations follow a well-worn route. It starts with a long-range rocket launch. The United Nations punishes the act with sanctions. And, Pyongyang responds by conducting a nuclear test.

It happened in 2006, and again in 2009. With the UN leveling new sanctions, the world is about to find out whether North Korea's young new leader will detonate an atomic bomb, or step away from the path his father laid.

The UN Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a resolution, the third of its kind since 2006, condemning a North Korean rocket launch as violating a ban on missile activity. North Korea's foreign ministry swiftly rejected the move early Wednesday, maintaining that the launch was a peaceful bid to explore space and accusing the US of "hostile" intent in leading the push for punishment.

In the face of what it considers to be a US threat, North Korea "will take steps for physical counteraction to bolster the military capabilities for self-defence, including the nuclear deterrence, both qualitatively and quantitatively," the ministry warned in a statement.

Analysts say the wording hints at a nuclear test. In 2006 and 2009, North Korea responded to similar Security Council punishment by detonating devices underground, which experts say is a key step in the process of developing an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a long-range missile.

"Things are lining up to make a nuclear test likely," said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst with the International Crisis Group. "There's a long-term pattern. The logic is to demonstrate your strength."

However, this time, North Korea has a new leader, Kim Jong-un, who took power in December 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong-il. How he will handle the standoff with the international community remains unclear.

While sending a satellite into space was his father's dying wish, the young Kim has focused less on defence, saying in a recent speech that "the building of an economic giant" is his country's most pressing task. He's also hinted at a desire to make a shift in foreign policy by saying publicly that he is open to reaching out to former foes.

At the same time, Kim has already thrown away one agreement with the United States by going ahead with a rocket launch in April, and further antagonized the international community with the launch that put North Korea's first satellite into space last month.

It would be burdensome to order a nuclear test that would risk additional sanctions at a time when Kim wants to revive the economy, said Koh Yu-hwan, professor of North Korean Studies at Seoul's Dongguk University. He said that with President Barack Obama starting a second term and a new South Korean government taking office next month, Kim will be watching to see how their foreign policies toward North Korea take shape before making any big moves.

A nuclear test could also strain Pyongyang's relationship with Beijing. China, North Korea's main ally and traditional protector, broke form in agreeing to the binding Security Council resolution and an expansion of sanctions.

The Security Council resolution demands that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible manner," and orders the regime to cease rocket launches. The binding resolution orders the freeze of more North Korean assets, including the space agency, and imposes a travel ban on four more officials.

China opposed tougher sanctions, and analysts said it is continuing to protect its ally.

"China is striking a balance here. It wants to punish North Korea for the latest launch and tell it not to undertake a new ballistic missile launch," said Shen Dingli, a regional security expert and director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University. "But it doesn't want to put unbearable pressure on Pyongyang."

There was no indication on Wednesday of an imminent nuclear test. However, satellite photos taken last month at North Korea's underground nuclear test site in Punggye-ri in the far northeast showed continued activity that suggested a state of readiness even in winter, according to analysis by 38 North, a North Korea website affiliated with the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.

Last month's rocket launch has been celebrated as a success in North Korea, and the scientists involved have been treated like heroes. Kim Jong Un cited the launch in his New Year's Day speech laying out North Korea's main policies and goals for the upcoming year, and banners hailing the launch are posted on buildings across the capital.

Washington and others consider the rocket launches covert tests of ballistic missile technology since satellite launches and long-range missile launches have similar firing mechanisms. At a military parade last April, North Korea showed off what appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Though it insists its efforts to launch a satellite are peaceful, North Korea also claims the right to build nuclear weapons as a defense against the United States, which stations more than 28,000 troops in South Korea. The adversaries fought in the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953 and left the Korean Peninsula divided by the world's most heavily fortified demilitarized zone.

North Korea has enough weaponized plutonium for about four to eight bombs, according to nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, who visited North Korea's nuclear complex in 2010. In 2009, Pyongyang also declared that it would begin enriching uranium, which would give North Korea a second way to make atomic weapons.

For years, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the US negotiated with North Korea to offer aid in return for disarmament. North Korea walked away from those talks after UN sanctions in 2009.

Later, Pyongyang indicated its readiness to resume discussing disarmament. In February 2012, it negotiated a deal with Washington to place a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests in exchange for food aid.

That deal fell apart when North Korea unsuccessfully launched a long-range rocket in April that it insisted did not constitute a missile test and thus was not a banned activity.

In July, North Korea's foreign ministry issued a memorandum declaring that it felt forced to "completely re-examine the nuclear issue due to the continued US hostile policy" toward Pyongyang. On Wednesday, the ministry said talks about disarmament are off the table.

It may be a non-nuclear issue that returns North Korea and the US to negotiations.

A US citizen is in North Korean custody after being arrested in the northeastern city of Rason in November, according to state media. Kenneth Bae is accused of committing "hostile" acts against the regime.

Similarly, in 2009, two American journalists were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for committing "crimes against the state". That August, three months after the nuclear test, former President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang to negotiate their release, a visit that provided an opening for dialogue between the foes.

Kim Jong-un, like his father, appears to be resorting to nuclear threats to deal with friction from the outside world, Pinkston said.

"It's more of the same — not that much change in the overall grand strategy and orientation," he said.

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Suicide bomber kills 20 Shias in Iraq

BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber killed at least 20 people inside a Shia Muslim mosque in northern Iraq on Wednesday after detonating his explosives in the middle of a crowded funeral ceremony.

The attack on a sensitive religious target came as Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki faces pressure from mass Sunni protests that are heightening fears the OPEC country risks sliding back into widespread sectarian confrontation.

"A suicide bomber at one mosque killed and wounded tens of people. We don't know who is behind this," Amin Aziz, deputy governor of Salahuddin province, told Reuters. "We don't have a clear toll yet."

Police, who were still rescuing victims from the bomb site, said at least 20 were killed and 35 more wounded in the attack on Tuz Khurmato, a religiously and ethnically mixed city 170 km (105 miles) north of the capital Baghdad.

A year after the last American troops left the country, Sunni Islamist insurgents tied to al Qaeda still carry out major bomb attacks to stir up the kind of Shi'ite-Sunni confrontation that killed thousands in 2006-2007.

Maliki, a Shia, is struggling to calm weeks of protests by Sunni Muslims while his fragile government, split among the Shi'ite majority, Sunnis and ethnic Kurds, is deadlocked in a crisis over power sharing.

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Japanese PM's olive branch to China

TOKYO: Hawkish Japanese premier Shinzo Abe held out an olive branch to China on Tuesday, sending a letter to Beijing's leader-in-waiting to be hand delivered by a coalition ally.

The move comes after months of diplomatic tussles between China and Japan over the sovereignty of a disputed island chain in the East China Sea that have seen repeated maritime encounters.

Natsuo Yamaguchi, head of the New Komeito party, was expected to stay in Beijing for four days, during which time he would meet China's incoming president, Xi Jinping, and hand over a letter from Abe, local media reported.

"Japan-China relations have been faced with various kinds of friction, and political dialogue has not been held for a long time," Yamaguchi told reporters ahead of his departure.

"I would like to make a step toward opening the door to normalising our relations," he said.

But Yamaguchi, who has no official government role, said Tokyo has no plan to compromise over the island row.

"Our stance is that no territorial problem exists. That's a shared recognition among the government and coalition."

China has repeatedly sent ships to waters near the disputed islands since Japan nationalised some of the chain in September, a move that triggered a diplomatic dispute and huge anti-Japan demonstrations across China.

Beijing has also sent air patrols near the Tokyo-controlled islands, known as the Senkakus in Japan, but claimed by Beijing as the Diaoyus.

On Sunday, Beijing rebuked the United States after secretary of state Hillary Clinton issued a veiled warning to China not to challenge Tokyo's control over the chain, which is believed to sit atop vast mineral reserves.

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Israelis vote in elections seen swinging to the right

JERUSALEM: Israelis trickled into polling stations on Tuesday to vote in elections expected to return Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power at the head of a government of hardlinerightwing and religious parties.

A handful of voters were already queuing up as stations opened at 0500 GMT, waiting to mark their ballots in blue voting booths, though many Israelis were taking advantage of the election day public holiday to sleep in.

Netanyahu was out early, casting his ballot with his wife Sara and their two sons at a polling station in the upscale Rehavia neighbourhood of Jerusalem, where the prime minister's official residence is located.

The prime minister, after casting his ballot said he hoped for "a flood of votes" for his rightwing joint Likud-Beitenu bloc, Israeli media reported.

Also among those out early in the unseasonably warm weather was Joe Jamal, 55, voting in the central Jerusalem neighbourhood of Katamon.

"I don't expect much change. I'm still hoping for an alternative, a move to the centre, for which I'm voting," Jamal, a doctor, said.

His expectations track polling ahead of the vote, which has consistently projected an easy win for the joint list of Netanyahu's Likud faction and the secular nationalist Yisrael Beitenu of former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The prime minister is expected to preside over a sharply rightwing government that is considered less likely to achieve a comprehensive peace deal with the Palestinians and could increase Israel's diplomatic isolation.

The government will face key diplomatic and foreign policy questions, including Iran's nuclear programme, which much of the world believes masks a weapons drive, and a Middle East profoundly changed by the Arab uprisings.

But domestic challenges will be no less pressing, with a major budget crisis and austerity cuts on the horizon, even as Israelis express widespread discontent over spiralling prices.

The joint Likud-Beitenu list may be confident of leading those competing for the Knesset's 120 seats, but polls show that the two parties will lose around 10 of the seats they hold now, garnering around 32 seats in total.

The centre-left Labour party is projected to trail in second place with around 17 seats. Its chief, Shelly Yachimovich, is expected to become leader of the opposition after pledging she would not join a Netanyahu government.

The campaign's big surprise has been Naftali Bennett, the young, charismatic new leader of the hardline national religious Jewish Home. He took over the party in November and has quickly become a rising star among settlers.

The party, which firmly opposes a Palestinian state and won just three seats in 2009, is on course to win 15, making it the third faction in parliament and a likely partner in any future coalition government.

Bennett's success has rattled Netanyahu, pundits say, with the premier pushing to stem the defection of voters to Jewish Home by burnishing his own credentials as a defender of Israeli settlement in the occupied territories.

Overall, according to final polls, the rightwing-religious bloc will take between 61 and 67 seats, compared with 53 to 57 for the centre-left and Arab parties.

Some 5.65 million Israelis are eligible to vote in Tuesday's parliamentary elections, including Arab citizens of the Jewish state, who are expected to stay away from the polls in record numbers.

Voters will be able to cast ballots at 10,132 polling stations, which are open for 15 hours, with television exit polls due to be broadcast immediately after they close.

Security has been tightened across the country and more than 20,000 police officers have been deployed to secure the vote.

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Israel set to re-elect Netanyahu

JERUSALEM: Israelis voted on Tuesday in an election that is expected to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu win a third term in office, pushing the Jewish state further to the right, away from peace with the Palestinians and towards a showdown with Iran.

However, Netanyahu's own Likud party, running alongside the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu group, looks set to have fewer seats than in the previous parliament, with opinion polls showing a surge in support for the far-right Jewish Home party.

Political sources said Netanyahu, concerned by his apparent fall in popularity, might approach centre-left parties after the vote in an effort to broaden his coalition and present a more moderate face to Washington and other concerned allies.

"We want Israel to succeed, we vote Likud-Beitenu ... The bigger it is, the more Israel will succeed," Netanyahu said after casting his ballot alongside his wife and two sons.

Some 5.66 million Israelis are eligible to vote, with polling stations closing at 10 pm (2000 GMT). Full results are due by Wednesday morning, opening the way for coalition talks that could take several weeks.

The lacklustre election campaign failed to focus on any single issue and with a Netanyahu victory predicted by every opinion poll, the two main political blocs seemed to spend more time on internal feuding than confronting each other.

"There is a king sitting on the throne in Israel and I wanted to dethrone him, but it looks like that won't happen," said Yehudit Shimshi, a retired teacher voting in central Israel, on a bright, hot mid-winter morning.

No Israeli party has ever secured an absolute majority, meaning that Netanyahu, who says that dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions is his top priority, will have to bring various allies onboard to control the 120-seat Knesset.

The former commando has traditionally looked to religious, conservative parties for backing and is widely expected to seek out the surprise star of the campaign, self-made millionaire Naftali Bennett who heads the Jewish Home party.

Bennett has ruled out any peace pact with the Palestinians and calls for the annexation of much of the occupied West Bank.

His youthful dynamism has struck a chord amongst Israelis, most of whom no longer believe in the possibility of a Palestinian deal, and has eroded Netanyahu's support base.

The Likud has also shifted further right in recent months, with hardline candidates who reject the so-called two-state solution, dominating the top of the party list.

"Trendy parties"

Surveys suggest Bennett may take up to 14 seats, many at the expense of Likud-Beitenu, which was projected to win 32 in the last round of opinion polls published on Friday -- 10 less than the two parties won in 2009 when they ran separate lists.

Acknowledging the threat, Netanyahu's son Yair urged young Israelis not to abandon the old, established Likud.

"Even if there are more trendy parties, there is one party that has a proven record," he said on Tuesday.

Amongst the new parties standing for the first time in an election were Yesh Atid (There is a Future), a centrist group led by former television host Yair Lapid, seen winning 13 seats.

"All our lives we voted Likud, but today we voted for Lapid because we want a different coalition," said Ahuva Heled, 55, a retired teacher voting with her husband north of Tel Aviv.

Lapid has not ruled out joining a Netanyahu cabinet, but is pushing hard for ultra-Orthodox Jews to do military service -- a demand fiercely rejected by some allies of the prime minister.

Israel's main opposition party, Labour, which is seen capturing up to 17 seats, has already ruled out a repeat of 2009, when it initially hooked up with Netanyahu, promising to promote peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

US-brokered talks collapsed just a month after they started in 2010 following a row over settlement building, and have laid in ruins ever since. Netanyahu blamed the Palestinians for the failure and says his door remains open to discussions.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he won't return to the table unless there is a halt to settlement construction.

That looks unlikely, with Netanyahu approving some 11,000 settler homes in December alone, causing further strains to his already notoriously difficult relations with US President Barack Obama, who was sworn in for a second term on Monday.

Iran threat

Tuesday's vote is the first in Israel since Arab uprisings swept the region two years ago, reshaping the Middle East.

Netanyahu has said the turbulence - which has brought Islamist governments to power in several countries long ruled by secularist autocrats, including neighbouring Egypt - shows the importance of strengthening national security.

If he wins on Tuesday, he will seek to put Iran back to the top of the global agenda. Netanyahu has said he will not let Tehran enrich enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb - a threshold Israeli experts say could arrive as early as mid-2013.

Iran denies it is planning to build the bomb, and says Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, is the biggest threat to the region.

The issue has barely registered during the election campaign, with a poll in Haaretz newspaper on Friday saying 47 percent of Israelis thought social and economic issues were the most pressing concern, against just 10 percent who cited Iran.

One of the first problems to face the next government, which is unlikely to take power before the middle of next month at the earliest, is the stuttering economy.

Data last week showed the budget deficit rose to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2012, double the original estimate, meaning spending cuts and tax hikes look certain.

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