Belgium: One Dies In 'Toxic Train' Crash Fire

One person has died and 17 others have been injured after a train carrying highly toxic chemicals derailed in Belgium, causing a major fire.

The blaze erupted and spread along a drainage ditch

The accident and blaze prompted authorities to evacuate nearly 300 people from their homes.

Jan Briers, governor of eastern Flanders, had earlier said there were two dead and 14 injured, but late Saturday authorities announced that 17 injured people have been hospitalised and officials were investigating the cause of one fatality.

Flammable liquid caught alight and explosions occurred

Some of the injured were people living well away from the scene of the accident. Interior Minister Joelle Milquet blamed toxic fumes from the highly flammable liquid chemicals.

The accident happened at around 2am local time, between the towns of Schellebelle and Wetteren, on the Belgian railway network.

Once daylight arrived the extent of damage could be seen

Six of the train's 13 cars derailed and two were thrown on to their side by the force of derailment. The blaze led to a series of explosions in the railway cars.

Fire then spread over hundreds of yards, prompting authorities to evacuate residents living more than 500 yards from the site of the accident.

The train crash, near Ghent, occurred near a set of track crossing points

But Ms Milquet said toxic fumes reached much further through the drainage system.

"There is a problem of poisoning linked to the smoke," she said.

"But there is also another reaction, since some of the chemical product went into the drains and caused a kind of chemical reaction with gases that are toxic and escaped into certain streets beyond the perimeter that had already been evacuated due to the fire."

Smoke and fumes were subdued by spraying water across the scene

Firefighters decided to let the cars burn out in a controlled manner as water could have released further toxic chemicals.

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

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

Officials said the tracks would be shut for days

Train services were disrupted and problems were expected for several days, with buses laid on to transport passengers.

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

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Tornado Smashes Through Northern Italy

Dramatic footage has emerged of a tornado that ripped through northern Italy, damaging hundreds of buildings and injuring at least 12 people.

Amateur video showed the twister as it struck towns and villages close to Emilia Romagna's regional capital Bologna.

Footage on YouReporter, a web portal for citizen journalists, showed the tornado directly over the small village of Bentivoglio.

Franca Fantuzzi was away from home when the storm hit.

Amateur footage shows the huge twister passing over rooftops

"Fortunately, I and my children had taken a holiday so we weren't here," she said, gazing at the damage.

Many farmers were out on their land and were caught up in the twister, like Sandro Roversi, who took shelter under his tractor.

Pointing to his vehicle, covered in debris, he said: "I couldn't move, it came so quickly, I was inside. I threw myself underneath, and I was OK. It was an enormous force, enormous."

Huge hailstones hit cars as the storm passed

The governor of Emilia Romagna, Vasco Errani, asked the central government to declare a state of emergency.

Italy's agricultural watchdog Coldiretti warned of millions of euros of damage to farms and crops.

The same area was devastated by an earthquake in May 2012.

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'Israel Rocket Strike' On Syria Military Site

Israeli missiles have struck a military research centre near the capital Damascus, setting off explosions, Syrian state television has said.

The rockets were said to have hit a military research centre in Jamraya on the outskirts of the capital in the early hours of this morning.

The building was the target of an earlier Israeli strike in January.

Israeli radio is reporting the latest attack has been confirmed by a senior security official.

A Western intelligence source said "stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah" were the target.

Video footage uploaded online by activists claims to show a huge ball of fire rising into the night sky.

More of the unverified footage uploaded by activists

Iran has condemned the Israeli attack and urged countries in the region to stand against the action, the Fars news agency reported.

Meanwhile, hundreds of families are fleeing a Syrian coastal area where activists say government troops have massacred nearly 200, many of them women and children.

Opponents of Bashar al Assad's regime say that fighters loyal to the President carried out two massacres on Saturday night and on Thursday in a Sunni Muslim area driven by a policy of ethnic cleansing.

Activists posted a video online of the bodies of 10 people it said were killed in Ras al Nabaa in the city of Banias, in an overnight attack.

The activists said half of the victims were children and that the number of deaths could be as high as 60.

Protests in Banias at the beginning of the uprising in 2011

It comes just two days after pro-Assad militias are alleged to have killed as many as 100 Sunnis in the nearby village of Baida.

Amateur video showed a man and at least three children dead inside a room.

A baby had burned legs and its body was covered in blood. Next to him was a young girl whose face had been deformed after apparently being hit with sharp metal.

Other footage from activists showed entire families killed in their beds. A dead woman is seen cradling a child in her arms and two toddlers lying next to them.

The videos have not been independently verified.

The crisis in Syria, which began in March 2011 with pro-democracy protests and later turned into a civil war that has killed an estimated 70,000 people, has largely evolved along sectarian lines.

Syria's crisis has claimed the lives of an estimated 70,000 people

The Sunni majority forms the backbone of the rebellion, while Mr Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, anchors the regime's security services and the military's officer corps.

Other minorities, such as Christians, largely support Mr Assad or are standing on the sidelines, fearing the regime's collapse would bring about a more Islamist rule.

It has been estimated as many as 4,000 people are fleeing from the predominantly Sunni southern parts of the Mediterranean city of Banias amid fears of further large-scale killings.

The US has condemned the attack on Thursday. State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said: "We strongly condemn atrocities against the civilian population and reinforce our solidarity with the Syrian people."

She added: "The United States is appalled by horrific reports that more than 100 people were killed May 2 in gruesome attacks on the coastal town of Bayda, Syria.

"Regime and Shabiha forces reportedly destroyed the area with mortar fire then stormed the town and executed entire families, including women and children."

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Italy: Baggage Handlers In Airport Bust

Italian police have arrested 29 baggage handlers from Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport after an investigation into the theft of valuable objects from passengers' luggage.

Those arrested are accused of stealing items, including cameras and mobile phones, from passengers' bags.

The arrests took place after hidden cameras were installed in plane cargo holds to capture footage of the alleged thefts.

Images from the cameras released by Italian authorities show baggage handlers rifling through people's possessions and stealing a number of items, including cash.

Police captured footage of the alleged thefts on hidden cameras

Italian national carrier Alitalia said it cooperated with police at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport and in Lamezia Terme, where the investigation began in 2011 and spread to a half-dozen airports across the country.

Lamezia Terme airport deputy police chief Ferruccio Martucci said investigators were stumped as to where the loot was being stolen and theorised that the only place where handlers could be assured of secrecy was in the cargo holds.

He said police installed temperature and pressure-resistant cameras in the holds and identified the thieves.

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Israeli Warplanes Launch Airstrike In Syria

Israeli officials have confirmed its air force carried out an airstrike allegedly targeting a shipment of advanced missiles in Syria.

The officials said the target was not chemical weapons, but of "game changing" arms bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The strike took place overnight on Thursday into Friday, just as Israel was flying many warplanes over Lebanon.

The US earlier said it did not believe Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace to conduct the strikes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly warned in recent weeks that his country would be prepared to take military action if chemical weapons or other arms were to reach Hezbollah.

Earlier this month, Israel admitted carrying out a January airstrike on a weapons convoy believed to be carrying anti-aircraft equipment in Syria thought to be en route to Hezbollah.

The confirmation of the strike came hours after Barack Obama refused to rule out options in dealing with the crisis in Syria but said he did not foresee sending in US ground troops.

Mr Obama, on a trip to Costa Rica, rules out US 'boots' on Syrian ground

Speaking during a visit to Costa Rica, the US President said: "As a general rule, I don't rule things out as commander-in-chief because circumstances change and you want to make sure that I always have the full power of the United States at our disposal to meet American national security interests.

"Having said that, I do not foresee a scenario in which boots on the ground in Syria, American boots on the ground in Syria, would not only be good for America but also would be good for Syria."

Mr Obama said there was evidence that chemical weapons had been used in Syria, but that "we don't know when, where or how they were used".

But if "strong evidence" is found of such weapons being used by the regime of President Bashar al Assad, then "that is a game changer for us" because "there is a possibility that it lands in the hands of organisations like Hezbollah", Mr Obama said.

Mr Obama said if use of chemical weapons in Syria is confirmed, the US will present that evidence to the international community, because it concerns the entire world.

But he called for caution to avoid unintended consequences, saying: It's important for us to do it right."

Meanwhile, warnings of a new "large-scale massacre" in Syria have emerged following reports Mr Assad's troops bombarded Sunni areas near the city of Bania.

There have been reports of a 'large-scale massacre' in Baida

The opposition National Coalition accused the regime of "war crimes and genocide", citing witness reports of civilians being stabbed to death.

"The Coalition calls on the Arab League and the United Nations to act rapidly to save the civilians of Baida, Banias and other villages across Syria," it said in a statement.

"Several sources in the village say at least 50 people were killed in summary executions and shelling in Baida village,"Rami Abdel Rahman, of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP news agency.

Syria's official Sana news agency said troops killed "terrorists" and seized arms in an operation targeting rebels.

Regular forces were supported by pro-regime "shabiha" militiamen, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground for its information.

The Banias region is predominantly Alawite, an offshoot of Shia Islam and the sect of Mr Assad, while the insurgents battling to topple his regime are mainly Sunni Muslims.

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Bodies Found After Kyrgyzstan Plane Crash

Two bodies have been found in the wreckage of an American military aircraft that crashed not far from its base in Kyrgyzstan.

The KC-135 refuelling aircraft came down on Friday afternoon near the village of Chaldovar, about 100miles (160km) west of the Manas air base, outside the capital Bishkek.

The authorities said they were still looking for a third person who was on board.

On Friday, it was reported that local people had seen an airman parachute from the plane before it came down.

The refuelling plane was said to have exploded in mid air when its cargo of fuel ignited on its way to Afghanistan on Friday, accident investigators said.

Experts were still trying to work out what led up to the crash.

Kuvan Mamakeev, the Kyrgyz state prosecutor responsible for investigating transport crimes and accidents, said: "It could be because of the fuel, because of the engine, the weather conditions or the human factor."

Remains of the two bodies were found on Saturday. They have yet to be identified.

The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker took off from the US military's transit centre at Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport, which American forces maintain for operations in Afghanistan.

It had around 70 tonnes of fuel on board, a local ministry official said.

The plane came down in the Chaldovar region, in Kyrgyzstan

The wreckage of the plane was scattered over a three and a half mile (5km) area in a mountainous part of the Central Asian republic.

The plane reportedly broke into three pieces when it crashed into an uninhabited region.

The deputy district chief Anatoly Ivannikov told local radio on Friday: "The preliminary information is that the pilot jumped out with a parachute. They have gone to look for him."

A spokeswoman at the US base said they were still confirming the report.

The US base, outside the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, was established in late 2001 to support the international military campaign in Afghanistan. Around 1,200 US military personnel are located there.

It has been the subject of a contentious dispute between the United States and its host nation. In 2009, the US reached an agreement with the Kyrgyz government to use the base in return for $60m (£38.5m) a year.

But the lease runs out in June 2014 and the United States wants to keep the base beyond that point to aid in the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

The KC-135 is an aerial refuelling aircraft, used to give fighter jets and bombers greater range.

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Bhutto Assassination Case Prosecutor Shot Dead

A leading Pakistani prosecutor working on the Benazir Bhutto murder case has been shot dead in the capital Islamabad.

State prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar was shot multiple times by gunmen who intercepted his vehicle in a busy street in the capital.

His bodyguard was also wounded and a woman passer-by killed during the attack.

Police officer Mohammad Yousuf said: "Chaudhry Zulfiqar was driving his car. He lost control and the car crushed a woman passer-by.

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007

"Zulfiqar was rushed to hospital where he succumbed to his injuries."

The gunmen fled and a massive search has been launched.

The prosecutor was on his way to the anti-terrorism court hearing the Bhutto case in the neighbouring city of Rawalpindi.

Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf was this week placed under two-week house arrest over charges that he conspired to murder Ms Bhutto.

Mr Zulfiqar had been given extra government security last year after police investigators working on the case received threats which also named him.

Former Pakistan ruler Pervez Musharraf has been placed under house arrest

He was also the government's lead prosecutor in a case related to the 2008 terrorist attack on the Indian city of Mumbai, in which 166 people were killed.

It is not yet clear who is responsible for the shooting, which comes days before Pakistan holds general elections.

No one has ever been convicted for Ms Bhutto's assassination after a campaign rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.

Mr Musharraf's government blamed the killing on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement. He was killed in a US drone attack in 2009.

He returned to Pakistan in March after four years in self-imposed exile to make a political comeback, but was barred from running in the parliamentary election because of investigations into his rule between 1999 and 2008.

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Bangladesh Factory Collapse: Engineer Arrested

An engineer who warned a building in Bangladesh was unsafe a day before it collapsed has been arrested on suspicion of negligence.

Details of Abdur Razzak Khan's arrest came as the number of people killed in the disaster passed 500, after dozens more bodies were pulled from the rubble.

The eight-storey Rana Plaza in Dhaka housed five clothing factories, including one which made garments for Primark.

A woman cries as she searches for her missing brother

Khan was a consultant for Mohammed Sohel Rana, the building's owner, when three floors were illegally added.

He was called to inspect the building when it developed cracks on April 23 and later appeared on television, saying he had told Rana to evacuate workers because the structure was not safe.

Police ordered an evacuation but witnesses say Rana told people gathered outside the building on the morning of the tragedy that it was safe to go inside.

A Bangladeshi soldier stands in front of the collapsed building

Hours later, the complex collapsed into 600 tons of rubble with around 3,000 people inside.

Lieutenant Mir Rabbi, of the Bangladeshi army control room, said the death toll now stands at 501.

More than 100 people are still missing.

Major General Chowdhury Hassan Suhwardy, an army commander who is supervising the rescue operation, said: "We are still proceeding cautiously so that we get the bodies intact."

Rana has also been arrested and is expected to be charged with negligence, illegal construction and forcing workers to join work.

The offences are punishable by a maximum of seven years in jail.

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Euro Forecast: Jobless Total To Stay Static

Unemployment levels are not expected to reduce significantly in any key eurozone nation during 2014, according to new forecasts released by the European Commission.

Recession in 2013 in the eurozone will be worse than expected, with GDP slipping 0.4% against a previous forecast of -0.3%.

The commission's spring forecast showed the situation improving however in 2014 in the nations sharing the euro, with growth at 1.2%, slightly less than forecast in February.

But France and Italy are both expected to see jobless numbers rise next year, it said.

However Spain is set to see dole queues drop by 0.6% while Greece's are expected to reduce by 1%, the commission added.

Meanwhile Germany, which is Europe's biggest economy, has been forecast to see a drop of just 0.1% in its jobless, down to 5.3%.

Across the 17-nation eurozone the commission said it expected the unemployed total to also ease by 0.1% in 2014, to 12.1%.

The commission said that in total across the whole 27 nations of the EU, which includes Britain, unemployment would remain static at 11.1% in both 2013 and 2014.

The commission warned that Cyprus, which has just gone through a major banking crisis, would head into a sharp recession.

It said GDP would contract in Cyprus in 2013-14 by 12.6%.

The forecasts come a day after the European Central Bank cut its base rate to an historic low of 0.5%.

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North Korea Reactor 'Could Produce Plutonium'

New satellite images of North Korea suggest it is nearing completion of a reactor designed for generating electricity - but which will have the capability to produce plutonium.

US academics who visited the site at the Yongbyon nuclear complex in 2010 concluded the reactor was being built for electricity.

Kim Jong-Un shut down a reactor in 2007 during aid negotiations

But analysts say that once complete the reactor will have a residual capability to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

The pictures have been published on 38 North - the website of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies.

The images - the most recent taken last month - show what appear to be external finishing touches made to the complex.

North Korea revealed an industrial-scale uranium enrichment facility in 2010 designed to provide fuel for the light-water reactor.

This development caused international alarm because of the potential for the centrifuges to be reconfigured to produce highly-enriched uranium - another means of creating fissile material for weapons.

If North Korea has produced enough low-enriched uranium to run the new reactor, it could commence the lengthy process of starting it up in the coming weeks, and be fully operational during the first half of 2014.

Containing the nuclear fuel and keeping the reactor cool pose major challenges - as would unforeseen events like natural disasters that caused a meltdown in Japan's Fukushima reactor in 2011, the analysis says.

"Pyongyang is probably planning to build additional power reactors to end its electricity shortage and help solve its economic problems," said Joel Wit, a former State Department official and editor of 38 North.

The latest image taken in March 2013 shows what could a water channel

"It may have some residual ability to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, but the biggest concern about these reactors is whether they are safe or not," he added.

North Korea announced in April that it was restarting an older reactor at Yongbyon from which it is estimated to have derived enough plutonium for six bombs.

The reactor was closed in 2007 during aid-for-disarmament negotiations.

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