At least 62 bodies found: Syria watchdog

THE bodies of at least 62 murdered residents have been found in a Sunni neighbourhood of the Syrian city of Banias, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

"The bodies of dozens of citizens killed on Friday during an assault by the army and Alawite members of the National Defence Forces in the Sunni neighbourhood of Banias were discovered on Saturday," the Observatory said.

"We have identified 62 citizens by their names, photos, or videos, including 14 children, and the number could rise because there are dozens of citizens who are still missing."

The mass killing is the second "massacre" to be reported in the Banias area this week.

On Thursday, the Observatory said at least 50 people had been killed in the Sunni village of Bayda, south of the coastal city of Banias.

"Witnesses from the village say no less than 50 civilians were killed, including women and children," the group said.

"Some were summarily executed, shot to death, stabbed or set on fire."

After the deaths, which were reported on Friday, regime forces began shelling several Sunni neighbourhoods of Banias, prompting residents to flee the area early on Saturday.

"Hundreds of families are fleeing Sunni neighbourhoods in Banias in fear of a new massacre," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"They started fleeing at dawn this morning (Saturday) from Sunni neighbourhoods in the south of the city towards Tartus and Jableh," he added.

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Two dead in Belgian train accident

TWO people died and 14 were injured when a train carrying chemicals derailed in Belgium, causing a major fire near the city of Ghent.

Jan Briers, governor of eastern Flanders, gave the death toll to the Belga news agency after the accident and blaze prompted authorities to evacuate nearly 300 people from their homes.

The accident happened around 2am (1000 AEST) on Saturday between the towns of Schellebelle and Wetteren, said Infrabel, the group responsible for the Belgian railway network.

Six of the train's 13 cars derailed and two were on their side.

The blaze led to a series of explosions in the railway cars, then a spectacular strip of fire spread over hundreds of metres prompting authorities to evacuate residents living near the site of the accident.

Firemen decided to let the cars burn out as water could have released toxic chemicals.

The blaze was under control by late morning but residents were told to keep their doors and windows closed.

The causes of the accident remains unclear. The cars derailed as the train changed tracks and observers say it might have been travelling too fast.

The train came from the Netherlands and was bound for Gent-Zeehaven, the city's seaport.

Train services between Schellebelle and Wetteren were disrupted and problems were expected for two days, with buses laid on to transport passengers.

Two similar accidents involving goods trains carrying tanks of toxic products occurred in Belgium in May 2012.

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Iceland to resume disputed fin whale hunt

ICELAND plans to resume its disputed commercial fin whale hunt in June with a quota of at least 154 whales, the head of the only company that catches the giant mammals says.

Two vessels are being prepared for the hunt and they will head out to sea in early June, Hvalur chief executive Kristjan Loftsson told Icelandic public broadcaster RUV on Saturday.

"The quota is 154 whales plus some 20 per cent from last season possibly," he said.

Loftsson's company caught 148 fin whales in 2010, but none in 2011 and 2012 due to the disintegration of its only market in quake- and tsunami-hit Japan.

Most of this year's whale meat would be exported to Japan, he said.

"Things are improving there ... everything is recovering," he said.

Fin whales are the second largest whale species after the blue whale. Iceland also hunts minke whales, a smaller species.

The International Whaling Commission imposed a global moratorium on whaling in 1986 amid alarm at the declining stock of the marine mammals.

Iceland, which resumed commercial whaling in 2006, and Norway are the only two countries still openly practising commercial whaling in defiance of the moratorium.

Japan also hunts whales but insists this is only for scientific purposes even if most of the meat ends up on the market for consumption.

In 2011, the United States threatened Iceland with economic sanctions over its commercial whaling, accusing the country of undermining international efforts to preserve the ocean giants.

But President Barack Obama stopped short of sanctions, instead urging Reykjavik to halt the practice.

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Egypt mob lynches teenager over killing

AN EGYPTIAN mob has lynched the teenage son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, saying he killed a man over Facebook comments critical of the movement.

The violence that took place on Thursday in the Nile Delta was the latest in a spate of vigilante killings in the region amid growing lawlessness since the 2011 revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.

Yussef Rabie Abdessalam, 16, pulled out a gun and opened fire indiscriminately, killing a passerby and wounding another after a heated argument with a man who had openly criticised the influential Brotherhood on the internet, the sources said.

His action sparked fury in Qattawiya, a village in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya, where Yussef's father, Rabie Abdessalam is an official at the local branch of the Justice and Freedom Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood of President Mohamed Morsi.

An angry mob surrounded the Abdessalam house seeking revenge, but the family refused to give Yussef up and hurled stones from inside the residence at the protesters.

A man outside the house was fatally wounded.

Police tried in vain to contain the violence and attempted to evacuate the Abdessalam family but the mob set fire to the house and in the confusion grabbed Yussef and lynched him.

The mob beat him up "and dragged him across 500 metres to his death," the Freedom and Justice Party said on its Facebook page.

"This is not a political incident," the Islamist party said, calling on all sides to show restraint.

But a security source and local media said the violence was triggered after comments hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood were posted on Facebook.

Crime rates have increased across Egypt since the uprising and a police officer reported in March that at least 17 lynchings had taken place in Sharqiya since 2011.

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Nigerian religious unrest claims 39 lives

THIRTY-NINE people have died and 30 were injured in fierce fighting between Christian and Muslim mobs in central Nigeria's Taraba state, prompting a round-the-clock curfew, police say.

Scores of houses were set ablaze and destroyed during the clashes in the town of Wukari on Friday, which come amid a surge in religious violence in the west African nation.

"We have so far compiled a death toll of 39 people, while 30 others were seriously injured," state police spokesman Joseph Kwaji said on Saturday.

Local residents say the death toll could rise.

"Thirty-two houses have also been destroyed in the violence," Kwaji said of the unrest, which has prompted authorities to impose an indefinite all-round curfew in the predominantly Christian city.

He added that 40 suspects were arrested in the aftermath of the violence.

State information commissioner Emmanuel Bello said that extra troops were deployed to the city on Saturday to bolster security.

"We have deployed more troops today to Wukari to ensure that the situation, which has been brought under control, is strengthened," he said.

The police spokesman Kwaji said Friday's violence erupted when the funeral procession of a traditional chief from the predominantly Christian Jukun ethnic group marched through a Muslim neighbourhood chanting slogans.

Tensions have been on the rise in Wukari since February when a dispute over the use of a football pitch between Muslim and Christian soccer teams set off sectarian riots that claimed several lives.

Friday's violence came a day after the state government inaugurated a committee to investigate the February violence.

It also follows a surge in violence and kidnappings in the restive north of Nigeria, the epicentre of an insurgency by Boko Haram Islamists, in recent months.

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Fears over man-made hybrid bird flu virus

IMMUNOLOGISTS are concerned about the "dangerous" work of Chinese scientists in creating a hybrid bird flu virus able to spread in the air between guinea pigs, and now living in a lab freezer.

The team from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Gansu Agricultural University have written in the journal Science that they have created the new virus by mixing genes from H5N1 "bird flu" and H1N1 "swine flu".

H5N1, transmitted to people by birds, is fatal in about 60 per cent of cases but does not transmit between humans - a characteristic so far preventing a pandemic.

Some argue hybrid studies like these shed light on how the virus could mutate in nature to cause a human epidemic, and may help us prepare.

Since 2003, H5N1 has infected 628 people, killing 374, according to the World Health Organisation.

H1N1, which erupted in Mexico, is highly transmissible and infected a fifth of the world's population in a 2009-10 pandemic, but is about as lethal as ordinary flu.

The new mutant virus was easily transmitted between guinea pigs through respiratory droplets - which the Chinese team said proved the deadly H5N1 virus may need but a simple genetic mutation to "acquire mammalian transmissibility".

Flu hybrids can arise in nature when two virus strains infect the same cell and exchange genes in a process known as reassortment, but there is no evidence that H1N1 and H5N1 have done so yet.

Some observers fear science is putting mankind at risk by pre-emptively creating such mutants.

"These are manmade viruses, they have never been made in Nature. They are now sitting in a freezer," virology professor Simon Wain-Hobson of France's Pasteur Institute told AFP.

He pointed to a laboratory leak of foot and mouth, a cattle disease, which caused an outbreak in Britain six years ago.

It was unclear how the flu hybrid, which is not deadly in guinea pigs, would affect people - but Wain-Hobson warned: "These could be pandemic viruses.

"That is, if there was ever an error or they got out or there was a leak or whatever, this could infect people and cause anywhere between 100,000 and 100 million deaths."

Wain-Hobson and others fear the risk may far outweigh the scientific value of the research.

The findings held little value for finding a vaccine or treatment that would take years to develop - probably long after an outbreak, they argue.

"The record of containment in the highest containment laboratories is not good. There have been repeated leaks," said Robert May, a former president of Britain's Royal Society of science.

"You do not do these things unless there is some call of extreme emergency," he said.

"We are encountering a real and present danger with extremely dubious benefits to the public."

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Eurozone recession to continue in 2013: EU

RECESSION in the crisis-hit eurozone will continue unabated for the rest of the year with unemployment remaining at record levels, the EU warns, though signs of recovery could emerge in 2014.

Economic output in the 17-nation area - home to 340 million people and a global rival to the United States, Japan and emerging giants - will shrink by 0.4 per cent this year, the European Commission said on Friday, worse than the 0.3 per cent forecast in February and after a 0.6 contraction last year.

Record unemployment in the single currency area will endure, the Commission's spring forecasts showed, with strong divergence between richer eurozone states to the north and members to the south mired in deep recession.

Repeating its last estimate, the Commission said eurozone joblessness this year would hit a record 12 per cent and 11 per cent across the whole 27-member EU. The rates vary hugely, with an alarming 27 per cent in Spain and a low 4.7 per cent in Austria.

"In view of the protracted recession, we must do whatever it takes to overcome the unemployment crisis in Europe," EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Ollie Rehn said in statement accompanying the Commission's latest economic forecast for the eurozone and full European Union.

"In Spain and Greece unemployment rates are at unbearably high levels," Rehn said at a news conference.

France, which has barely avoided recession despite significant headwinds, will in the end shrink by 0.1 per cent in 2013 as weakness in household demand, a key economic driver, finally takes its toll. France will then rebound to 1.1 per cent growth in 2014, the data said.

But France will widely miss its commitment to meet the EU's 3 per cent of GDP deficit ceiling and will post a 3.9 per cent deficit this year and 4.2 per cent shortfall next year.

Spain will continue a hard slog from its crisis, brought on by the 2008 implosion of a decade-long housing bubble, and should contract by 1.5 per cent in 2013 before reversing to 1.4 per cent in growth in 2014.

But Spanish public finances will remain dire well into next year with a government deficit of 6.5 per cent in 2013 expected to worsen in 2014 to 7.0 per cent as certain measures expire.

The crisis will be hugely felt in recently bailed out Cyprus where output is expected to contract by 8.7 per cent this year in the wake of a severe restructuring of the island nation's key banking sector, including a controversial "haircut" on deposits.

The Cypriot recession will prolong into 2014 and beyond, the Commission said, with the economy expected to contract by an overall 15 per cent between 2012 and 2015.

In a rare glimpse of encouragement, the Commission saw recovery in Greece by the end of the year after six consecutive years of recession. The country is forecast to eke out 0.6 per cent growth in 2014, after contracting sharply by 4.2 per cent this year.

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Boston bombing suspect's remains claimed

The body of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev will be released to his family. Source: AAP

A FUNERAL home has claimed the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a gunbattle with police after an intense manhunt.

Department of Public Safety spokesman Terrel Harris said on Thursday a funeral home retained by Tsarnaev's family had picked up the 26-year-old's remains.

Authorities are now closer to being able to make public Tsarnaev's cause of death.

The medical examiner determined Tsarnaev's cause of death on Monday, but officials said it wouldn't be disclosed until his remains were released and a death certificate was filed. It was unclear whether the death certificate had been filed.

Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, who has been living with her parents in Rhode Island, learned this week that the medical examiner was ready to release his body and wanted it turned over to his side of the family, her lawyer Amato DeLuca said days ago.

Tsarnaev's uncle Ruslan Tsarni, of Maryland, said on Tuesday night the family would take the body.

"Of course, family members will take possession of the body," Tsarni said.

After a hearse believed to be carrying Tsarnaev's body departed Boston, television stations reported that their helicopters followed it to the Dyer-Lake Funeral Home in North Attleboro.

About 20 protesters gathered outside the funeral home. An Associated Press photographer later saw a hearse leaving the home escorted by two police cars.

Dyer-Lake funeral director Tim Nye told The Sun-Chronicle newspaper late on Thursday that the body was only brought to his funeral home temporarily and was transported to another facility, but he didn't say where.

"He is not at our funeral home and we won't be handling final arrangements," Nye said.

Tsarnaev, who had appeared in surveillance photos wearing a black cap and was identified as Suspect No. 1, died three days after the bombing.

The April 15 bombing, using pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bearings and metal shards near the marathon's finish line, killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Authorities said Tsarnaev and his younger brother later killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer and carjacked a driver, who later escaped.

Authorities said that during the gunbattle with police, the Tsarnaev brothers, ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago, set off another pressure cooker bomb and tossed grenades before the older brother ran out of ammunition.

Police said they tackled the older brother and began to handcuff him but had to dive out of the way at the last second when the younger brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, drove a stolen car at them. They said the younger brother ran over his brother's body as he drove away from the scene to escape.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured later, wounded and bloody, hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston backyard. He is in a federal prison and faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill.

The Tsarnaev brothers' mother insists the allegations against them are lies.

Three of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's friends, college classmates, were arrested on Wednesday and accused of helping after the marathon bombing to remove a laptop and backpack from his dormitory room before the FBI searched it.

A top Republican senator on Thursday asked President Barack Obama's administration to explain how one of the students entered the United States without a valid student visa.

Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, in a three-page letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, asked for additional details about the student visa applications for Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, college roommates from Kazakhstan charged with obstruction of justice in the marathon bombing case, and how Tazhayakov was allowed to re-enter the United States in January.

Tazhayakov was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth when he left the US in December. In early January, his student visa status was terminated because he was academically dismissed by the university.

Peter Boogaard, a DHS spokesman, said on Wednesday that when Tazhayakov arrived in January Customs and Border Protection had not been alerted that he was no longer a student. Boogaard said the department was working on a fix to the student visa system.

The third student arrested, Robel Phillipos, was charged with willfully making materially false statements to federal law enforcement officials during a terrorism investigation.

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Indonesia jails two foreigners over drugs

AN Indonesian court has sentenced a German man and a South African woman to life in prison for attempting to smuggle drugs into a resort island in two separate cases, a judge says.

Rolf Oskar Josef Schweikert, 57, was caught trying to smuggle 3.7 kilogrammes of hashish into the island of Lombok, just east of Bali, in October as he arrived on a Silk Air flight from Singapore.

He was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday at the district court in the city of Mataram, judge Pastra Joseph Ziralluo told AFP on Friday.

Kathlyn Dunn, 28, was arrested arriving on a Silk Air flight from Singapore two days before the German, attempting to smuggle in 2.6 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine, said the judge.

She "was given the same sentence" on Wednesday, Ziralluo said. However, he stressed that the court had not made any connection between the cases and the pair were tried separately.

The two were both charged with "attempting to import drugs", but they avoided the maximum sentence of death by firing squad.

Customs officials found hashish in the lining of Schweikert's suitcase with a street value of $US730,000 ($A715,370), while Dunn was caught with crystal methamphetamine valued at $US500,000.

Indonesia enforces some of the stiffest drug laws in the world. In March, it resumed executions after a hiatus of several years when a Malawian drug smuggler was put to death.

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Man charged over Sydney strip club fire

A MAN has been charged over a suspicious fire that badly damaged a Kings Cross strip club just after a female employee was assaulted.

Firefighters and police were called to The Love Machine on Darlinghurst Road about 3.15am (AEST) on Friday to find the upstairs section of the club well alight.

Five people escaped from the building without injury and six others were evacuated from a nearby residential unit as a precaution.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze before it spread but two rooms on the third level were severely damaged, a Fire & Rescue NSW spokesman said.

Shortly after the fire security officers detained a man seen leaving the area.

Police will also allege a 67-year-old woman was choked, punched and kicked by a man before the fire started.

The 25-year-old from Gymea has been charged with destroying property by fire, robbery and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He has been refused bail to appear at Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday.

The woman was treated for bruising and lacerations but was not seriously injured.

Identified only as Ann, she told Macquarie Radio she was attacked by a patron yelling that he was going to set the place alight.

"I fought for my life for seven minutes," she said.

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Cardboard in shower drain where boys died

CARDBOARD was found inside a shower drain where two young boys died when they were left alone for 10 hours, an inquest in Perth has heard.

The West Australian coroner is examining the deaths of Lochlan James Stevens, aged two, and Malachi Isaac Stevens, 10 months.

They died in November 2008 after their mother, Miranda Hebble, left them in the shower and fell asleep or passed out for 10 hours.

A police video was shown in court on Thursday, revealing a hair dryer plugged in and numerous items in the shower, including cardboard in the drain.

There were also clothes and towels blocking the door, and magazines and nappies scattered.

Another video showed police re-enacting the flooding and measuring the depth of the water in which the boys would have been sitting.

Psychiatrist Felice Watt testified that although she could not diagnose Ms Hebble because she was not her patient, she displayed symptoms of post-natal depression.

Referring to notes made during a stint at Graylands Hospital after the deaths, Dr Watt said Ms Hebble exhibited symptoms including sleeplessness, anxiety, appetite loss, isolation, weight loss and a lack of energy.

Dr Watt said each factor alone could not determine a diagnosis, but together provided a "snapshot" into Ms Hebble's state.

However, she added she did not have the "whole picture" about what Ms Hebble was thinking or feeling at the time.

Despite having no history of depression, Ms Hebble could have experienced mental illness, due to the "psychiatric pressures" of raising two children, that went untreated.

Ms Hebble's history indicated she suffered from migraines and iron deficiency, Dr Watt said.

She also told medical staff she had a "weak body", became tired easily and often wanted to be alone so she would push people away.

Dr Watt said mothers often felt shame about admitting they were struggling to cope, which was why child health nurses were important, but Ms Hebble was not seeing her nurse regularly.

Coroner Alistair Hope commented that Dr Watt's evidence highlighted the danger that existed for some women who were alone, isolated and not in much contact with the outside world when they were "stuck" at home raising children.

Dr Watt said those mothers were most at risk of post-natal depression.

Ms Hebble will testify next week.

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Nathan Tinkler faces fresh legal action

Liquidators have begun legal action against Nathan Tinkler and the directors of Mulsanne Resources. Source: AAP

LIQUIDATORS and a major creditor have begun legal action against Nathan Tinkler and the directors of Mulsanne Resources over allegations of insolvent trading and breaching their duties.

The action was launched over a share placement agreement that was approved by Mulsanne Resources' shareholders at a general meeting on July 12 last year.

In February, Mr Tinkler faced two days of questioning in a NSW Supreme Court examination of his personal finances by liquidators for Mulsanne Resources.

Mulsanne was wound up over a $28.4 million debt.

The chief creditor, Blackwood Corporation, and liquidators initiated legal action on Thursday, almost three months after the liquidator conducted public examinations of Mr Tinkler, fellow director Matthew Keen and the former company secretary Aimee Hyde.

"The liquidator has formed the view that there is a case to answer for insolvent trading and breach of directors' duties," Blackwood Corporation company secretary Patrick McCole said in a statement.

He said the liquidator could seek compensation against the directors and officers if the court found them liable for insolvent trading.

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NSW neighbours win holiday rental ban

GOSFORD Council has failed its constituents by not resolving the issue of an illegal holiday house rental in Terrigal, a judge has ruled.

At the Land and Environment Court on Thursday, Justice Rachael Ann Pepper ruled that Rhonda Bennic's short-term holiday letting of her 6-bedroom house was unlawful because the property is located in a 2A residential zone.

Her next-door neighbours John and Rosemary Dobrohotoff told the court that the house, which can sleep up to a dozen people, had regularly been used for parties and bucks' nights involving strippers and escorts, with noise and anti-social behaviour continuing until the early hours.

The house has been used for short-term holiday rentals since 2006, and Ms Bennic has owned it since 2011.

Justice Pepper said Gosford Council had failed to resolve the issue locally.

"In my opinion, it amounts to an effective abrogation of the council of its duties," she said.

"By leaving it to the court to determine this important issue, the council has failed to do one of its core functions and has failed its constituents."

She said letting the house to short-term guests was prohibited under the current zoning laws.

"This decision may cause a degree of inconvenience for property owners" in the area, she said.

Mrs Dobrohotoff told the court she grew increasingly anxious as weekends and holidays drew near, and often took her family away from their home at those times to avoid the disturbance.

In her ruling, Justice Pepper said the property did not qualify as a dwelling as it was not being occupied in the same way a family or another group would live in it.

But she found that the fault was not entirely Ms Bennic's, as she had never been told by Gosford Council that it was illegal to rent out her property.

She awarded the Dobrohotoffs an injunction preventing the house from being rented out for periods of less than three months, but delayed it until the end of June so as not to impose unnecessary financial hardship on Ms Bennic.

Mr Dobrohotoff told reporters outside the court he welcomed the finding.

"We are pleased to have this outcome, which will have positive effects on the health and welfare of our family, as well as the other families in our neighbourhood," he said.

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More infrastructure funds needed: report

THE federal government must establish a department dedicated to the infrastructure needs of Australian cities to address a $500 billion backlog in urban development, building groups say.

The suggestion is among a raft of ideas in a report - New Deal for Urban Australia - outlining the key infrastructure challenges as Australia deals with a growing population.

Compiled by the Urban Coalition, a collective of key industry figures, the report calls for greater"leadership and investment from the government.

It also recommends the establishment of an Urban Infrastructure Fund to meet the cost of development.

"We need to access both national and international savings and direct them to fund ... infrastructure - such as public interchanges, removing pinch points on local road and freight networks," Property Council Chief Executive Peter Verwer said.

Julie Katz, national president of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, said inadequate funding was causing congestion in cities.

"The longer distances between home and work, the greater the difficulties and congestion in our cities," she said.

Executive Officer of The National Growth Areas Alliance, Ruth Spielman, said more than 80 per cent of Australia's population lived in cities and people in fast-growing outer suburbs want to live closer to basic services.

"People need jobs and services closer to home and improved transport options," she said.

She said the proposed changes would financially realistic for the government to put into action.

"There's no doubt that the money is there, and we need collaboration among the spheres of government," she said.

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Kriss Kross rapper Chris Kelly dead at 34

Kris Kross rapper Chris Kelly, who made the 90s hits Jump and Warm It Up, has died aged 34. Source: AAP

CHRIS Kelly, half of the 1990s kid rap duo Kris Kross who made one of the decade's most memorable songs with the frenetic Jump, has died, according to authorities. He was 34.

Investigator Betty Honey of the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office said the 34-year-old Kelly was pronounced dead around 5pm on Wednesday at the Atlanta Medical Center in the US state of Georgia.

Honey said authorities are unsure of Kelly's cause of death and that an autopsy has yet to be performed.

However, the New York Times reported that Kelly had died of an apparent drug overdose.

"It appears it may have been a possible drug overdose," Corporal Kay Lester, a spokeswoman for the Fulton County police, is reported to have said.

This, Lester said, is based on statements received at the scene as well as evidence turned up at Kelly's home in south Atlanta, the newspaper said.

According to Lester, police were called to Kelly's home around 4.30pm on Wednesday. He was then transported to the south campus of the Atlanta Medical Center.

Kelly, known as Mac Daddy, and Chris Smith, known as Daddy Mac, were introduced to the music world in 1992 by music producer and rapper Jermaine Dupri after he discovered the pair in an Atlanta mall.

The duo wore their clothes backwards as a gimmick, but they won over fans with their raps.

Their first, and by far most successful song, was Jump. The hit, off their multiplatinum 1992 debut album Totally Krossed Out, featured the two trading versus and rapping the refrain, the song's title.

The duo had surprising maturity in their rap delivery, though the song was written by Dupri. It would become a No. 1 smash in the United States and globally, and one of the most popular of that year.

Their success led to instant fame: they toured with Michael Jackson, appeared on TV shows, and even had their own video game.

The pair were never able to match the tremendous success of their first song, though they had other hits such as Warm It Up and Tonite's tha Night. Earlier this year, they performed together to celebrate the anniversary of Durpri's label, So So Def.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on its website that Kelly's death was being treated as a possible drug overdose.

The rapper was found unresponsive at his home on Wednesday and rushed to Atlanta Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy has been scheduled for Thursday.

The singer's mother, Donna Kelly Pratte, said in a statement reported by several US media outlets early on Thursday: "To millions of fans worldwide, he was the trendsetting, backwards pants-wearing one-half of Kris Kross who loved making music.

"But to us, he was just Chris - the kind, generous and fun-loving life of the party. Though he was only with us a short time, we feel blessed to have been able to share some incredible moments with him."

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Suspect saw child porn day April vanished

THE man accused of murdering five-year-old British girl April Jones watched child pornography on the day of her disappearance and exchanged text messages with his ex-girlfriend over their break-up, his trial has heard.

Mark Bridger, 47, watched a cartoon of a young girl being raped and also looked up child murders on his computer hours before April went missing, prosecutor Elwen Evans told a court in north Wales.

Outlining the prosecution's case on the second day of evidence, she said search terms discovered on Bridger's laptop included "British girl murdered in France", and "ten-year-old girls naked".

The schoolgirl's disappearance sparked one of the biggest police searches ever mounted in Britain and drew in hundreds of local people to scour the mountainous area, but her body has never been found.

The trial heard that blood and tiny bone fragments found at Bridger's cottage were a near-perfect match with April's DNA.

Showing the jury photographs of the living room, Evans said the blood stains near the wood-burning stove, on the carpet and on the sofa were a "one-in-a-billion" match to April's DNA profile.

Bridger, an experienced slaughterman who once worked at an abattoir, denies abducting and murdering April as she played near her home in the small town of Machynlleth in mid-Wales on October 1 last year.

The prosecution says he went to great lengths to clean up the evidence of her murder, although police officers who went to his home had not realised the significance of his efforts at the time.

Evans said: "When they went in there they stated that the house was uncomfortably hot, that there was a strong smell of detergent, and a smell of cleaning products, air freshener and washed clothes."

Bridger made a series of statements to police, but his final account was that he had run over April in a road accident and had put her, either dead of dying, into his Land Rover.

The trial continues.

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May Day protests against austerity

TENS of thousands of angry protesters have staged traditional May Day rallies in several countries of the crisis-wracked eurozone as fury erupted at demonstrations in Bangladesh after a deadly building collapse.

Thousands took to the street in Spain, some brandishing flags reading "6,202,700", a reference to the record number out of work in the recession-hit country.

"This austerity is ruining and killing us," read one banner in Madrid, a reference to the unpopular German-led policy of squeezing budgets in response to the eurozone's three-year debt crisis.

Jose Antonio Sebastian, a 50-year-old engineer, said he was one of the lucky ones still in work but feared he would soon be joining the ranks of the unemployed, now 27 per cent of the working population.

"With the speed at which we are destroying jobs in Spain, I think this will soon happen to me as well. We have no choice but to look for jobs abroad," he complained.

Meanwhile, a strike in Greece stopped ferry services and disrupted public transport in Athens as workers marched against austerity in a country where the jobless rate is also around 27 per cent.

Waving brightly coloured protest flags, nearly 13,000 people answered the call of unions and leftist groups to rally in the country, facing its sixth year of recession and making painful job cuts to appease international creditors.

In France, where unemployment has also hit a record high of 3.2 million people, the National Front party of extreme rightist Marine Le Pen, which also traditionally marches on May 1, called for a light of hope in a France "locked in the darkness of Europe."

France "is sinking into an absurd policy of endless austerity... because it's about always saying yes to Brussels, to Berlin of course, and to financial moguls in all circumstances," she said.

Pope Francis used a private mass in his residence to mark May Day to decry "slave labour" and urged political leaders to fight unemployment in a sweeping critique of "selfish profit" which he said "goes against God."

He said conditions in the Bangladesh factory that collapsed last week killing more than 400 workers were "called slave labour" with employees paid just 38 euros ($50) a month.

In Dhaka, protesters held red banners and flags chanting "Hang the killers, Hang the Factory Owners" after the devastating collapse of the garment factory, as rescuers warned the final toll could be more than 500.

Police put the number of protesters at the main rally at more than 20,000, and there were smaller-scale protests elsewhere in the Bangladeshi capital and in other cities.

In Turkey's biggest city Istanbul, police fired tear gas and water cannon at stone-throwing protesters trying to gather for a banned demonstration.

More than 30 people, mostly police, were injured and 72 arrests were made as fighting erupted in three neighbourhoods leading to Taksim Square.

And some 20,000 protested in Croatia, where unemployment stands at 22 per cent and union leaders warned they were giving their government a "last chance to change direction".

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Eurozone rescue fund nears capital target

A MASSIVE rescue fund created to ward off further crisis in the eurozone has reached more than half its capital target and is on pace to become the world's richest financial institution, the European Stability Mechanism says.

"Thanks to the contributions of our Member States the ESM has a very robust capital structure", said Klaus Regling, Managing Director of the ESM.

"As foreseen, the 17 Member States of the euro area transferred the third tranche of paid-in capital to the ESM by 30 April 2013," he said.

The ESM is a crucial piece of the effort by eurozone countries to bring an end to the three year old crisis.

It is designed to shield the eurozone's most fragile governments from single-handedly recapitalising their country's teetering banks, which has seen public deficits balloon destabilising world markets.

Regling said eurozone member states had boosted their capitalisation of the war chest to 48 billion euros ($A61.44 billion) with two remaining tranches to be paid in October and April next year.

"Upon payment of the final tranche, the ESM will have a paid-in capital of 80 billion euros, becoming the international financial institution with the highest paid-in capital worldwide," Regling said.

In a year the ESM will have reached a lending capacity of 500 billion euros, he said, not counting an existing 192 billion euros in commitments to the ESM precursor, the European Financial Stability Facility.

The ESM is a permanent rescue fund and only came into being after a challenge at the German Constitutional Court was rejected last summer.

Full operation of the ESM however still awaits the creation of an EU-wide banking supervisor.

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India sex crime laws not tough enough: UN

INDIA'S new sex crime laws do not go far enough to protect women or tackle gender inequality, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women says.

The legislation was passed following the fatal gang rape of a student on a Delhi bus in mid-December that sparked nationwide demonstrations over the lack of safety for women.

New measures passed by Indian MPs in March increased punishments for sex offenders to include the death penalty if a victim dies, and broadened the definition of sexual assault.

But Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against women, said the laws were still not tough enough.

She told a news conference it was unfortunate that the opportunity to establish a substantive framework "to protect and prevent against all forms of violence against women, was lost".

Her comments echoed those of other Indian women's activists who praised the intent of the legislation but said it still had huge holes.

Campaigners are unhappy about MPs' refusal to criminalise marital rape or increase the punishment for acid attacks on women from a minimum seven-year jail term.

The UN official, who toured several Indian states to obtain first-hand reports about violence against women, said she would release her findings to the world body next year.

She said she had heard on her 10-day visit about "sexual violence, domestic violence, cast-based discrimination and violence, dowry related deaths, crimes in the name of honour" and other offences.

She quoted one person on her trip as describing violence against women as spanning the "life cycle from womb to the tomb".

Her trip came in the wake of a call in December by UN rights chief Navi Pillay for India to help rid itself of the "scourge" of rape after the 23-year-old bus victim died of injuries inflicted by six drunken men.

Manjoo said demonstrations in the wake of her death seemed not to have had any effect in curbing sex crimes.

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US police arrest three suspects in Boston

US police have announced that they have arrested three more suspects as part of their investigation into a bomb attack on the Boston marathon that left three dead and more than 260 wounded.

"Three additional suspects taken into custody in Marathon bombing case. Details to follow," the Boston Police Department said on Twitter.

One of two ethnic Chechens, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was already in custody and has been charged with carrying out the bombing.

His brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed on April 18 during the manhunt for the pair.

The brothers are alleged to have detonated backpacks holding pressure cookers packed with explosives near the finish line of the April 15 race. They are also accused of killing a police officer during their time on the run.

Boston police did not immediately offer more details of the arrests, but the Boston Globe newspaper reported the new suspects were college students who are alleged to have helped Dzhokhar after the attack.

Officials have said they are investigating a recent period Tamerlan spent in the volatile North Caucasus region of Russia and intelligence reports that he had developed an increasingly radical view of his Islamic faith.

But investigators have not suggested the pair were part of a larger group.

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Mum forced 14-year-old to get pregnant

A WOMAN desperate for another child forced her 14-year-old daughter to get pregnant using syringes of donor sperm, a British judge says.

In a ruling reported for the first time on Monday, High Court judge Peter Jackson said the mother had behaved in "a wicked and selfish way" that almost defied belief.

The judge said the woman, an American divorcee living in Britain with three adopted children, hatched the plan after she was prevented from adopting a fourth.

The scheme involved getting her oldest daughter to inseminate herself with syringes of sperm purchased over the internet from a Denmark-based company, Cryos International.

Jackson said the daughter, identified only as A, "became pregnant at the mother's request, using donor sperm bought by the mother, with the purpose of providing a fourth child for the mother to bring up as her own".

In his ruling, the judge quoted the teenager as saying she was shocked by the suggestion, but thought, "If I do this ... maybe she will love me more."

"My mum is a very determined person and she does her best not to let anything get in her way if she wants it," the teenager added.

The judge said the mother also made the teenager use douches of vinegar or lemon and lime juice in hopes of increasing her chances of having a girl.

The judge said it was likely but not certain that the daughter soon became pregnant and suffered a miscarriage. After six more attempts with the donor sperm, she gave birth to a baby boy in July 2011, when she was 17.

But midwives at the hospital became alarmed by the odd behaviour of A's mother. Her daughter wanted to breastfeed the baby, but her mother said: "We don't want any of that attachment thing."

The hospital alerted the authorities, and the children were taken into foster care. The mother is now serving a five-year jail term for child cruelty.

Details of the case were heard during proceedings at the family division of the High Court over the children's future last year. They were reported for the first time on Monday after several British media organisations, including the publisher of The Guardian newspaper, challenged reporting restrictions.

A court order bars identifying the family members in order to protect the children.

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New PM vows to save Italy from austerity

ITALY'S new Prime Minister Enrico Letta says his coalition government will act fast to reverse an austerity policy he argues is killing Italy and has called on Europe to become a motor for growth.

"Italy is dying from austerity alone. Growth policies cannot wait," Letta said during his inaugural speech to parliament on Monday, under the watchful gaze of European partners.

The recession-hit country, effectively rudderless since an inconclusive election in February, is under pressure to act fast to tackle social, economic and institutional ills.

The leftist moderate, who was sworn in with his cabinet on Sunday, promised to have results in 18 months or "take the consequences".

He said the economic situation in Italy - one of the first countries to fall prey to the eurozone debt crisis - "is still serious" and its two trillion euro ($A2.5 trillion) debt "weighs heavily" on ordinary Italians.

But he also looked to Europe, saying it was suffering from "a crisis of legitimacy and ... must become once more a motor of sustainable growth" - a reference to his aim to persuade Europe to reverse its disputed austerity policy.

The 46-year-old moderate from the centre-left Democratic Party said he wants to deal quickly with the social fallout of the longest economic slump in 20 years.

Investors appeared buoyed by the new leadership, with Italy performing well at its first market test, paying significantly lower rates to raise 6.0 billion euros at a five- and ten-year bond auction

Letta said the political class had to react to the growing anti-establishment voice in Italy, which was driven by anger over politicians' perks at a time of widespread financial difficulties.

The government's first act would be to cut the salaries of ministers who are also members of parliament, and are therefore currently eligible for two salaries, he said.

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Google pushes personal assistant on Apple

GOOGLE has announced it will offer its personal assistant app Google Now to users of Apple devices, stepping up its challenge to its rival's Siri program.

"Google Now is about giving you just the right information at just the right time," Google's Andrea Huey said in a blog announcement.

"It can show you the day's weather as you get dressed in the morning, or alert you that there's heavy traffic between you and your butterfly-inducing date - so you'd better leave now!

"It can also share news updates on a story you've been following, remind you to leave for the airport so you can make your flight and much more."

Google Now, which like Siri is a voice-activated software program - will be available to users of Apple iPhones and iPads, which use the iOS operating system.

"Today, with the launch of Google Now on iPhone and iPad, your smartphone will become even smarter," Huey said.

The move comes with the two California tech giants in a fierce battle for domination of mobile operating platforms. Google's Android has taken the lead in smartphones and is gaining rapidly in the tablet market.

Google meanwhile has argued that Apple's Siri is a potential threat to its core search engine by allowing smartphone users to bypass Google for many searches, which can generate ad revenue.

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UN appeals for Syria chemical arms inquiry

UN leader Ban Ki-moon has made a new plea to Syria to stop blocking an international inquiry into the alleged use of chemical weapons in the country's conflict.

Ban met the head of the investigation team, Ake Sellstrom, as international suspicions about the use of the weapons grow and on the day designated to remember the victims of chemical weapons attacks.

Ban told reporters he "takes seriously" US reports about the weapons and said "I again urge the Syrian authorities to allow the investigation to proceed without delay and without any conditions".

Sellstrom and an advanced team now in Cyprus can deploy to Syria "within 24 to 48 hours", the UN secretary-general said on Monday.

President Bashar al-Assad's government asked for a UN inquiry but has refused to let investigators into the country, demanding they be limited to its claims that opposition rebels used chemical weapons near Aleppo on March 19.

Britain and France have asked that the inquiry also look at opposition claims that chemical arms also had been used in Homs and near Damascus.

Ban wrote a new letter to Assad on Thursday seeking access as the United States revealed its suspicions that chemical arms have been used. Diplomats said the Syrian government is barely communicating with UN and other international bodies.

"I take seriously the recent intelligence report of the United States about the use of chemical weapons in Syria," Ban said. "On-site activities are essential if the United Nations is to be able to establish the facts and clear up all the doubts surrounding this issue.

"A credible and comprehensive inquiry requires full access to the sites where chemical weapons are alleged to have been used," he added.

"I encourage all involved to uphold their responsibilities in enabling us to properly police these heinous weapons of massive destruction."

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Santander bank chief resigns: company

THE Spanish banking giant Santander has announced the resignation of chief executive Alfredo Saenz, who was convicted in 2011 for irregularities in a debt-recovery case.

He will be replaced by Javier Marin, Santander's current head of insurance, asset management and private banking, said the bank, which is the eurozone's biggest by capitalisation.

It gave no reason in its statement for the "voluntary resignation" of Saenz, 70, who had been chief executive since 2002 and had looked likely to succeed Emilio Botin as executive chairman.

Saenz was convicted in 2011 of lodging false charges against certain creditors in order to reclaim debts from them, but no final sentence has been pronounced against him.

In November 2011 the outgoing Socialist government commuted his initial sentence, a suspended jail term and a banking ban, to a fine.

But Spain's Supreme Court partially quashed that decision this month.

The offences date to 1994 when Saenz was chairman of Banesto, a bank that was bought that year by Santander.

Saenz is eligible for a pension of 88.2 million euros ($A112.8 million) and was paid 8.2 million euros by the bank last year, according to its annual report.

The bank said it had nearly quadrupled in size during his tenure, with assets growing from 358 billion euros to 1.25 trillion euros.

"The board of directors expressed its recognition of and gratitude for Alfredo Saenz's extraordinary achievements since joining the group," it said in a statement.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government this month passed a decree allowing bankers with penal convictions to continue working in the sector if the Spanish central bank gave its authorisation.

That was seen as a positive step for Saenz on his way towards replacing Botin at the top of Santander.

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