Italy to pay 40bn euros owed to business

THE Italian government has given its go-ahead for a bill to repay 40 billion euros ($A50.06 billion) owed to the private sector in a bid to stimulate growth.

"The cabinet meeting today approved an urgent decree to pay back the debts of the public sector to the private sector," Prime Minister Mario Monti told a press conference after talks on Saturday.

The bill had been eagerly awaited by Italy's business community under pressure from the longest post-war recession in the eurozone's third largest economy and a lack of available credit from banks.

Finance Minister Vittorio Grilli said the payments could begin as early as Monday and would extend over the next 12 months.

Monti said total debts were 80 billion euros at the end of 2011 and that banks estimated they had since risen to more than 100 billion euros.

"This means costs for businesses and for the whole country. It is an unacceptable situation that has taken on ever greater dimensions," Monti said.

The interim prime minister, who is in charge awaiting the formation of a new government following elections in February, said the payments would not breach the threshold of 3.0 per cent mandated by the European Union.

Monti stressed that the approval of the draft bill did not mean his government had plans to stay in charge for longer, adding that Saturday's cabinet meeting "could be the last one".

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72 dead in Mumbai building collapse

AUTHORITIES have abandoned a search for more survivors from the collapse of a seven-storey building on Mumbai's outskirts that killed 72 people.

They say there is no hope of finding anybody else alive.

The cave-in of the partly finished building late on Thursday has highlighted widespread shoddy building standards in India where there is huge demand for housing and pervasive corruption often means cost-cutting and no inspections.

"The rescue work is now over since there is no hope of finding any more survivors," Sandeep Malvi, Thane municipal corporation spokesman, told AFP on Saturday.

"The death toll is now 72. About 36 are injured and undergoing treatment. At least 126 people have been rescued," he added.

Most of the victims were poor daily wage earners working at the site and their families, who were living with them. The dead included 17 children and 22 women, a local government statement said.

The building collapse is the deadliest since 2010 when 69 people were killed in New Delhi in a similar incident.

A 65-year-old woman was pulled from the rubble late on Friday after being trapped for almost 30 hours and was in stable condition in hospital, police said.

Police have arrested the two builders responsible for construction of the structure who had fled after the disaster and filed accusations of culpable homicide against them, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency said.

The building's floors collapsed directly on top of each other like a pack of cards - a phenomenon known as a "pancake collapse" - making rescue work even tougher, said Alok Awasthi, commandant of the National Disaster Response Force.

"We are reasonably sure there is nobody there," Awasthi said after calling off the search.

Rescue workers used sledgehammers, chainsaws, hydraulic jacks and bulldozers to break through the mass of rubble in Thane district, 35 kilometres from central Mumbai.

"We had to proceed very slowly as any mis-step would have pushed up the death toll," Awasthi said, according to PTI.

The Maharashtra state government has announced a probe into the incident and suspended a top civic administrator and a police officer for dereliction of duty.

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World powers, Iran extend nuke talks

IRAN and world powers are battling to break the deadlock in the crisis over Tehran's nuclear drive.

Talks in Kazakhstan have been extended into the evening after a day of exhausting diplomacy on Saturday.

Officials from both sides are tight-lipped over whether any progress had been made but discussions continued longer than expected.

So far they have failed to resolve the main issue of whether Iran will accept limits on its nuclear program in return for some relief on the sanctions that have hurt the Islamic republic's economy in the past two years.

The world powers - comprised of the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany and known collectively as the P5+1 - are represented by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Iran's team is led by top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili who has until now held out little hope of concessions from Tehran.

An Iranian official close to the negotiations in the Kazakh city of Almaty said Tehran submitted a "detailed proposal" on Saturday that set off the day's negotiations.

But sources added that the parties still could not agree on details as well as the vital subject of where and when to meet again.

As well as bilateral discussions, the two sides held a plenary meeting in the morning, then continued in the afternoon. Another plenary session took place in the evening, officials said.

The two sides had held an indecisive first day of meeting on Friday that ended with only an agreement to meet again and Western officials admitting the positions were still far apart.

Ashton started Saturday by meeting Jalili in the hope of establishing whether Tehran's position had shifted from its tough demands of the previous day.

Both sides acknowledge differences despite growing Western fears about the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program.

Iran insists on international recognition of its asserted "right" to enrich uranium and wants that condition to be a part of any deal.

The world powers on the other hand say the onus is on Iran to take the first step to guarantee its nuclear program is and has been exclusively peaceful.

They insist on Tehran ending enrichment to high levels and verifiably suspending operations at the Fordo mountain bunker where such activity takes place before recognising Iran's nuclear rights to less threatening activities.

The P5+1 grouping is especially worried about Iran's enrichment to levels of up to 20 per cent and wants the Islamic republic to ship out the part of its 20-per cent enriched uranium not converted into powder for reactor fuel.

Iran denies it is developing the atomic bomb and argues that it requires a nuclear program solely for peaceful medical and energy needs.

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British woman stabbed to death in Kashmir

A YOUNG British woman holidaying in Indian Kashmir has been found dead in a pool of blood on a houseboat.

Police have arrested a Dutch man on suspicion of her murder.

The 43-year-old was taken into custody as he tried to flee the scenic Kashmir valley in the foothills of the Himalayas, police superintendent Tahir Sajjad said on Saturday.

"We walked into a pool of blood in her room," Sajjad said.

"We found a sharp-edged knife close to her body. The young lady had multiple stab wounds."

The attacker broke the latch on the cabin door of the 24-year-old British tourist who'd been staying in the houseboat on the picturesque Dal Lake in the Indian Kashmir city of Srinagar for two months.

Police were investigating whether the victim had been sexually assaulted in the incident, which comes after a string of attacks on tourists travelling in India.

They said her body had been sent for a post-mortem examination.

"We can confirm the Jammu and Kashmir police have the body of a British woman. We have contacted the next-of-kin and we are providing consular assistance to the family," a British High Commission (embassy) spokeswoman told AFP in New Delhi.

"At this moment, we cannot reveal the identity of the woman," she added.

In a statement, the police said that the victim was from Manchester.

Police said they had arrested the suspect in a taxi near Qazigund, 75 kilometres south of Srinagar on the highway leading out of the Kashmir valley.

He had been staying in the same houseboat as the victim and had arrived on Thursday, they said.

He had allegedly fled in a small boat which capsized as he was trying to reach the shore, forcing him to swim. The suspect was carrying only his passport when he was arrested, police said.

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Afghan bomb kills 3 soldiers, 2 civilians

THREE NATO soldiers and two coalition civilians have been killed in a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan.

The US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on Saturday the five were killed following an improvised explosive device attack.

Officials did not disclose the nationalities of the fallen soldiers and civilians in line with ISAF policy.

An ISAF spokesman in Kabul said the blast was a car bomb that targeted a military patrol in the insurgency-hit south. There were also Afghan civilian casualties, he added.

An Afghan official also confirmed that the blast was a car bomb on a NATO military patrol in Qalat city, the capital of southern Zabul province.

"An explosive-packed car went off this morning in Qalat city as a NATO convoy was passing. We heard it has caused heavy casualties," the provincial official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The attack is one of the deadliest to target US-led coalition forces this year, as their troops wind down their operation in the war-torn country ahead of a scheduled full withdrawal in 2014.

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Rebel govt aims to hold sway across Syria

SYRIAN rebel prime minister Ghassan Hitto has begun talks to form an interim government to administer the whole of Syria.

"The interim government is the executive authority that will extend its authority over all national Syrian territory, and it will consist of 11 ministries," the main opposition Syrian National Coalition said in a statement on Saturday.

Nominees for each post must "be able to work from within Syrian borders," said the coalition.

"The nominee cannot be a pillar of the current regime (of President Bashar al-Assad) or have committed crimes against the Syrian people."

The opposition has been divided over the need for an interim government and over Hitto's election as premier at a meeting in Istanbul last month.

After the coalition's vote to name Hitto, a dozen prominent opponents froze their membership of the umbrella group accusing the powerful Muslim Brotherhood bloc of having pushed through the nomination.

Mainstream rebel Free Syrian Army chief Selim Idriss has said a key condition for accepting an interim government was that its authority should cover the whole of Syrian territory, not just areas under rebel control.

The coalition said the government will comprise ministers of defence, interior, foreign affairs, local administration, economy and public resources, education, agriculture and water, health, infrastructure, relief and justice.

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Indon detains Muslims heading to Aust

INDONESIAN police have arrested 35 Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar planning to make the treacherous sea crossing to Australia to seek asylum.

Officials said on Friday the arrests came the same day Rohingya being held at a detention centre on Sumatra island beat to death eight Buddhist detainees from Myanmar (Burma) after being enraged by photos of recent communal violence in their homeland.

Rohingya, described by the United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted minorities, have fled Myanmar in their thousands since Buddhist-Muslim tensions exploded in their home state of Rakhine last year.

The 35 migrants, who included 12 children, were arrested at a flat in the city of Surabaya, East Java province, for not having the necessary immigration documents to be in Indonesia, said local police chief Wiji Suwartini.

"They planned to go to Australia," she told AFP, adding that they would be sent to an immigration detention centre in the city.

An increasing number of Rohingya have been arriving on Indonesian shores, where many face long stints in detention awaiting UN assessment for refugee status.

Friday's attack at the detention centre in Belawan underscored the soaring Muslim-Buddhist tensions that have cast a shadow over political reforms in Myanmar which have brought an end to decades of authoritarian military rule.

Australia is facing a steady influx of asylum-seekers arriving by boat, many of whom use Indonesia as a transit hub, paying people-smugglers for passage on leaky wooden vessels after fleeing their home countries.

Hundreds have died making the treacherous journey over the past few years.

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US trade deficit shrinks to $43bn in Feb

THE US trade deficit edged lower in February after a big jump in January, government data released on Friday shows.

The Commerce Department reported the trade gap shrank to $US43 billion ($A41.4 billion), down from the revised $US44.5 billion in January.

The decline, which came after a large 16.7 per cent deficit increase in January, surprised analysts who had projected a deficit of $US44.7 billion.

US exports grew 0.8 per cent to $US186 billion, strengthened by the exports of industrial goods (up 4.5 per cent) and cars (up 1.6 per cent).

Meanwhile, US imports held steady at $US228.9 billion.

US imports of crude oil, which represent more than 10 per cent of imported goods by the US, dropped 5.6 per cent to $US23.6 billion.

But US imports of foreign cars rose 4.6 per cent between January and February to reach $US24.8 billion.

On a 12-month basis, the US trade deficit has dropped by 3.5 per cent.

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Canada unemployment rate rises to 7.2%

A LOSS of 55,000 jobs in March pushed Canada's unemployment rate up 0.2 per centage points to 7.2 per cent, its government statistics agency says.

Fewer people were working in accommodation and food services, public administration and manufacturing, while there was little change in all other industries, said Statistics Canada on Friday.

The private sector shed 85,000 employees while the ranks of the self-employed rose by 39,000.

There was little change in the number of public sector jobs.

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Strong 6.2 quake rocks Russia near NKorea

A POWERFUL 6.2 magnitude earthquake has struck in eastern Russia near the border with China and North Korea.

The US Geological Survey says the epicentre of the quake was southwest of Vladivostok, around nine kilometres from the Russian border town of Zarubino, at a depth of 561 kilometres.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the tremor, which struck seconds after 12 am Saturday local time.

A 6.1-magnitude quake struck Russia's far east last month, and a 6.9 quake rocked the region in February. Neither caused significant damage.

An underground formation in the area known as the Kuril-Kamchatka arc is considered one of the most seismically active regions in the world.

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