Wednesday, 20 March, 2002, 01:29 GMT

Marco Biagi died outside his home in Bologna

EUROPE

Wednesday, 20 March, 2002, 01:29 GMT

A close aide to Italy's labour minister has been shot dead. Marco Biagi, an assistant to Labour Minister Roberto Maroni, was killed outside his home in the northern city of Bologna.

Updated: 03:18 a.m. EST (0818 GMT) -- 20 March 2002

The bus exploded near the Israeli-Arab town of Um el-Fahm.

Suicide bomber kills at least 5 in Israel

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JERUSALEM (CNN) -- A suicide bomber detonated himself on a bus in northern Israel on Wednesday morning, killing at least five people and wounding at least 30 others, a police spokesman said. The bomber also died in the blast. The attack happened on the bus as it traveled along a highway from Tel Aviv to Nazareth near the Israeli-Arab town of Um el-Fahm. The explosion mangled the center of the bus, blowing a hole through the roof and knocking out all its windows. Most of the injured were Israeli Arabs, according to the police spokesman.

An attack by a suicide bomber on a bus in northern Israel killed at least five people and wounded 30 others Wednesday morning, a police spokesman said.

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Assassination in Italy

Assassination in Italy

A senior economist who drew up many of the Italian centre-right government's controversial labour reform proposals has been shot dead. Police confirmed fifty year old Marco Biagi was gunned down in front of his own house in Bologna at around 8:30 pm local time. Eyewitnesses reported two people on a motorbike approached the economist and law professor and opened fire as he arrived home on his bike. Biagi's murder comes at a time of union anger in Italy over a planned reform of labour laws that will make it easier to hire and fire staff. Even yesterday Italian newspapers were still debating the highly controversial proposals. Biagi was one of the authors of the proposed employment changes. In an interview given just a few days before his death he talked of finding a solution and a compromise. He said he thought the unions could be won around if the new law was given a trial period to see how it works. The leader of Italy's largest union, Sergio Cofferati, denounced the killing. He said, "The murder's the latest act of barbarism committed by a terrorism which has not been overcome and that aims to change the rules and dynamics of democracy and social dialogue". The killing has revived fears of a resurgence of the politically motivated violence Italy suffered in the 1970s and 1980s. Prime Minister Berlusconi said it must be defeated at all costs.

Another suicide bomb attack in Israel

At least three people have died and more than 25 people have been injured after a bomb exploded in a bus full of passengers in the north of the country. It was on its way from Tel Aviv to the town of Nazareth. Police say a kamikaze is to blame. Most of the victims were Arab Israelis. This latest attack comes a day after a visit to the region by US vice president Dick Cheney to try to revive a Middle East peace process.

New resignation plunges Yugoslavia deeper into crisis

The resignation of Serbia's Deputy prime minister has plunged the Yugoslav federation into its deepest crisis since the departure of former dictator Slobodan Milosevic. An ex-army chief under Milosevic, Momcilo Perisic stepped down following his alleged involvement in a spy scandal, although he denies the accusations. Perisic was arrested in Belgrade earlier this week together with an American diplomat, to whom he is accused of passing secret military documents. Both were later released. Prime minister Zoran Djindjic demanded his resignation in order to allow a full investigation into the affair. The row has inflamed a bitter political rivalry between Djindjic and the Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica since the transfer of Milosevic to the UN war crimes tribunal last June. The decision to send Milosevic to the Hague was taken by the Serbian government alone without Kostunica's approval. Djindjic has denounced Perisic's arrest as an attempt to discredit his government. Reformers of Djindjic's more liberal and pro-Western camp say the affair highlights a lack of democracy within the Yugoslav army which remains largely unchanged since the days of Communist rule.

Zimbabwe suspended from Commonwealth

Zimbabwe suspended from Commonwealth

Anti-Mugabe protestors have been cheering outside the London headquarters of the Commonwealth, after Zimbabwe was suspended from the group for a year. The move was taken following Robert Mugabe's re-election last week, which was widely condemned as blatantly fraudulent by the West. The announcement was made by a Commonwealth troika made up of Australian Prime Minister John Howard and the leaders of Africa's two most powerful nations: Nigerian president Olesegun Obasanjo and his south-African counterpart Thabo Mbeki. Mugabe's main rival, opposition leader Morgan Tvangirai, has welcomed the move saying he hopes it will ring alarm bells for Mugabe. The suspension is a largely symbolic step but has left Mugabe isolated even by his African partners, usually reluctant to voice open criticism of their neighbours.

Massive Antartic ice shelf melts

An Antartic ice shelf the size of a small country has broken apart in less than two months. The speed of its disintegration has shocked scientists. Satellite images show the 500 billion tonne Larsen B ice sheet fragmenting into small icebergs in less than eight weeks. It was predicted back in 1998 that several ice shelves in the area were doomed because of rising temperatures, although it was thought they would last much longer. Average temperatures in the region have risen two and a half degrees Celsius in the past fifty years. That is an increase greater than for any location in the southern hemisphere. However the actual picture in the region is more complicated with average temperatures in the centre of Antartica falling over the same period. Despite a surface area of over 3000 square kilometres, the break up of Larsen B will not raise sea levels, because the shelf was an extension of the ice sheets covering the land. However the levels will go up, if those ice sheets now start flowing more rapidly into the sea.

British woman takes "right-to-die" case to Strasbourg

A British woman who wants to commit suicide with her husband's help has taken her case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. 43-year-old Diane Pretty, who has two children, is terminally ill with motor-neurone disease. She says she wants to be able to choose how and when she dies rather than suffer the final stages of the disease. Because she is paralysed from the neck down, she wants her husband Brian to be free from prosecution if he helps her take her life. But judges at Britain's top appeals court ruled against her last year. Under English law, committing suicide is not illegal but helping someone do so carries a maximum 14- year jail term. Diane Pretty says Britain's decision infringes on her and her husband's rights under the European Convention. The Strasbourg court is due to give its ruling in about a month's time, although doctors have given Diane Pretty only weeks to live.

US research raises questions over BSE testing

American scientists have carried out research on mice which could challenge existing ideas about BSE or "mad cow disease" if the results hold true for cattle or sheep. The researchers injected mice with prions, the rogue proteins linked to those which cause BSE. The results showed prions can collect in muscle. But the European Union says direct comparisons cannot be made between mice and cattle. A French expert pointed out that up to now the disease has been limited to sheep and cows infected naturally, whereas the American results reflect an artificial environment. France has reacted quickly, saying samples will be taken from the muscle of cows that have tested positive for BSE. But Britain's chief adviser on BSE says it is unlikely the new study will lead to new safety recommendations. EU countries currently operate on the theory that beef can be made safe to eat by stripping out the spinal cord and other risky parts of the animal. But the European Parliament has said some governments are ignoring measures to protect the public. The human form of BSE, known as variant Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease, has killed at least a hundred people in Britain, France and Ireland.

3 million heist at Heathrow Security's under the spotlight again at London's Heathrow

3 million heist at Heathrow Security's under the spotlight again at London's Heathrow

Airport after another audacious robbery. Two men dressed as security guards hijacked a van carrying 3.4 million euro which'd arrived on two South African Airways flights. The pair, believed to be Asians, forced the driver to drive out of Heathrow where the money was transferred to another vehicle. The driver of the vehicle, who was unharmed, is now being questioned along with a man arrested on Tuesday over last month's multi-million heist at the world's busiest airport. In a strikingly similar raid, two men hijacked a British Airways security van stealing nearly six and a half million euro in used foreign currency.

Valencia sees a firey end to winter

Take over seven million euro, spend it on the construction of 373 great monuments, 371 not so great ones, and parade them about, before setting fire to them and watching them burn to the ground and what have you got? Well apart from over 3000 tonnes of ashes and mess, it is the annual St. Joseph's night festival in Valencia. On the order of the greater Fallera, the monuments, many works of art painstakingly constructed, are rather more quickly deconstructed. The fire represents the purification of Mediterranean history, and more importantly for many, it signifies the start of Spring. From the euro to Harry Potter, the flames ravished them all. Then it is not before long before all the monuments are gone. That is when the fire-fighters use their watery clout to put the raging fires out, and the organisers can start planning it, all of again.

The most important Inca find in forty years

Peruvian and British explorers have discovered what they say is a hidden city that may have sheltered stalwarts of the legendary empire as they made their last stand against Spanish conquerors. Located on this narrow ridge around 3 thousand three hundred metres high in Peru's windswept southern Andes, the Inca citadel of Corihuayrachina is a mysterious place. The man who found the ruins, Peter Frost says it is the biggest discovery of its kind since 1964. He believes it may have been a place the Incas went to when they took to the hills during the Spanish conquest. It is about 35 kilometres from the famous Inca citadel of Macchu Picchu. But unlike Macchu Picchu experts say Corihuayrachina was not home to the Inca elite. Some Inca with an army of 50 thousand men held out against the Spanish invaders for nearly 40 years. Archaeologists working on the site are still trying to piece together what is still a jigsaw puzzle in the surrounding area.