Italian quake-hit town of Onna rebuilds

RECONSTRUCTION work funded by the German government has started on a 13th century church in Onna, a village in the central Italian region of Abruzzo that was destroyed by an earthquake four years ago.

The 6.3-magnitude quake that hit the medieval town of L'Aquila and its surroundings on April 6, 2009, killed 309 people and left nearly 70,000 homeless. In Onna, 41 of 280 inhabitants were killed.

Italy's new culture minister, Massimo Bray, and Germany's public works minister, Peter Ramsauer, travelled to the village for the inauguration of the rebuilding works.

The German embassy in Rome said on Saturday that Berlin pledged 3.5 million euros ($A4.4 million) for Onna's church, where occupying German troops shot dead 17 civilians as a reprisal for partisan activities during World War II.

"On June 11, 1944, Germans inflicted on Onna unspeakable sufferings. With the sustainable reconstruction of the Church of Saint Peter Apostle we want to offer a proof of reconciliation and friendship between our two countries," Ramsauer said.

Il Centro, a local newspaper, wrote: "Everything that has been done in Onna in the last four years is due to the solidarity from the German Federal Republic," noting that reconstruction work should have started in 2010 but was blocked by "Italian bureaucracy".

Locals have repeatedly complained about slow progress on rebuilding. Work on the historic centre of L'Aquila started in recent weeks, and Italy's former regional aid minister, Fabrizio Barca, has told the DPA news agency that it would take "10-12 years" to be completed.

Barca quit office last week, as a new government was appointed. In his last report to parliament, he said that there were still more than 22,000 displaced people in the L'Aquila region and that 10 billion euros ($A12.8 billion) would be needed to fund the reconstruction.

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$100m Vic budget boost for Frankston line

TRAIN services are set to be more reliable on one of Melbourne's busiest rail services under a $100 million boost that will be part of this week's state budget, the government says.

Premier Denis Napthine will on Sunday announce a cash injection for the south-eastern Frankston line, which carries about 60,000 people every weekday.

The money will pay for track, signalling and power upgrades, which will in turn improve service reliability, he says.

"This $100 million will mean the Frankston line will also be able to accommodate the X'Trapolis trains, giving passengers the fastest, most reliable and most comfortable commute to and from the city," Dr Napthine said.

Poor service on the Frankston line was a key issue in the 2010 election, with a swathe of seats along the line, including Bentleigh, Mordialloc and Carrum, switching from Labor to the coalition.

Transport Minister Terry Mulder said one in three trains on the Frankston line ran late under Labor as at June 2010.

Over the past year, punctuality had jumped to 91 per cent, he said.

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Pakistan officials visit hurt prisoner

PAKISTANI embassy officials have visited a hospital in north India where a Pakistani prisoner is in critical condition in the intensive care unit after being attacked by an Indian inmate.

Convicted murderer Sanaullah Ranjay suffered multiple head injuries in a prison in Jammu in an apparent tit-for-tat attack after an Indian prisoner, Sarabjit Singh, was fatally assaulted in Pakistan.

On Friday, Ranjay was airlifted to a government hospital in the city of Chandigarh, 250km north of New Delhi.

A spokeswoman for the government hospital said Ranjay was in the intensive care unit and on a ventilator as his condition "continues to remain critical".

The Pakistani High Commission (embassy) officials "came to the hospital and we have given them Ranjay's medical update", added Manju Wadwalkar, the spokeswoman of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research Hospital.

Ranjay, who hails from the city of Sialkot in Pakistan, was attacked by a prisoner who was identified as a former Indian army soldier nearly 24 hours after Singh's death in Lahore.

Singh died on Thursday in Pakistan and was cremated with state honours on Friday in his native village in northwestern India where hundreds of protesters shouted "Down with Pakistan!" as they gathered to pay their tributes.

Singh had been on death row after being convicted by a Pakistani court 16 years earlier for espionage and for his alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks in Pakistan that killed 14 people in 1990.

His family insisted he was a farmer who became a victim of mistaken identity after inadvertently straying across the border while drunk. India's government also denied he was a spy.

The prison violence could aggravate tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, whose relations were hit by a border flare-up earlier this year that undermined efforts to build trust.

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Orthodox Christians mark 'Holy Fire' rite

THRONGS of Orthodox Christians have filled Jerusalem's ancient Church of the Holy Sepulchre and surrounding streets for the "Holy Fire" ceremony on the eve of Orthodox Easter.

Believers hold that a divine fire from heaven ignites candles held by the Greek Orthodox patriarch, in an annual rite dating back to the 4th century AD symbolising the resurrection of Christ.

Israeli police deployed in large numbers to secure an estimated 10,000 faithful packed into the church, with a similar number in the streets around the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.

The event, the highlight of the Eastern Christian calendar, was attended by pilgrims from around the world - predominantly Eastern Europe - as well as Arab Israelis, all carrying unlit candles.

Greek Patriarch Theophilos III made his traditional grand entry on Saturday at the head of a procession of monks, chanters and dignitaries with red and gold banners bearing icons.

After circling the shrine in the heart of the church three times, he entered along with the Armenian Patriarch what Orthodox, Roman Catholics and many other Christians believe is Jesus's burial site, emerging minutes later with a lit candle.

The holy flame was swiftly passed from candle to candle between ecstatic believers, most of whom had waited for several hours for the ceremony which filled the air with light and smoke.

While the Church of the Sepulchre is one of Christianity's holiest sites, it is shared uneasily by six denominations - the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, Egyptian Copts, Syrian Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox.

Roman Catholics in Jerusalem and Bethlehem celebrated Easter on March 31, according to the Gregorian calendar.

But this year other Catholics in the Holy Land, including those from Nazareth, decided for the first time to mark Easter this Sunday under the Orthodox calendar, in an act of ecumenical unity.

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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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