San Francisco - Twitter, which is preparing for its initial public offering, said on Wednesday it will help users receive special alerts from government agencies and aid agencies during emergencies.

Users who sign up will receive smartphone notifications via the Twitter app as well as SMS text messages - assuming they agree to handover their cell phone numbers - from any of several dozen agencies who have signed on to the program.

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency, Tokyo's Disaster Prevention service and the World Health Organization are among those participating.

The alerts program starts a year after Twitter showcased its potential as a lifeline during Hurricane Sandy, when stranded residents on the eastern US seaboard reported the storm's progress and sought help on the mobile network.

A similar lifeline service played a part in the rescue efforts in Japan following the devastating 2011 tsunami, Twitter said. The program is initially available in the United States, Japan and Korea and will be expanded to other countries.

Craig Fugate, the FEMA administrator, said the service was at the cutting edge of disaster management in the age of smartphones.

"Today we have a two-way street — residents are informed about hazards in real time and emergency managers receive immediate feedback on the consequences of a disaster," Fugate said in a statement.

The program reflects the evolution of Twitter from its earliest days, when it gained a reputation as a hangout for geeks to share the minute details of their most recent meal or who they encountered at the South by Southwest Festival.

But the crowd-sourced information of today's Twitter has also proved problematic.

Even as the New York City Fire Department used Twitter to communicate with residents during Hurricane Sandy, there were pranksters who spread misinformation on the service, including a rumor that the New York Stock Exchange was submerged underwater.

And in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, the name of a missing Brown University student went viral on Twitter after many users, including journalists, mistakenly identified him as a suspect.

Twitter, for its part, has maintained a strictly hands-off attitude toward monitoring its content and denied responsibility for ensuring its accuracy.

Earlier this month, Twitter filed with regulators for an initial public offering. Reuters reported last week that Twitter was in talks looking to add additional banks to its underwriting syndicate.

NEW DELHI: India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh branded Thursday's attack by militants on an Indian police station and army camp in disputed Kashmir as “barbaric” but - without mentioning Pakistan - said it would not derail efforts to pursue peace through dialogue.

“This is one more in a series of provocations and barbaric actions by the enemies of peace,” Manmohan Singh said in a statement. “Such attacks will not deter us and will not succeed in derailing our efforts to find a resolution to all problems through a process of dialogue.”

A group of militants dressed in Indian army uniforms attacked an Indian police station located near the main city of Srinagar before attacking an army camp and killing eight people, Indian officials said.

The attack triggered calls in New Delhi for talks between the rival nations' leaders at the weekend to be called.

Just a day before the attack, Singh said he would meet Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly for highly anticipated talks.

The Pakistani Prime Minister had also earlier expressed his wish to meet his Indian counterpart at the UN General Assembly to resume peace efforts between the two South Asian countries.

The talks are expected to discuss rising violence in the Kashmir region and to promote cordial relations between the neighbouring countries.

While Pakistani officials have not yet outlined the agenda for the Sharif-Singh meeting, Indian officials have said the issue of terrorism would figure prominently in the talks.

Pakistani officials, however, underlined Mr Sharif’s commitment to improving ties with India, pointing out that despite a downturn in ties after clashes at the Line of Control (LoC), the prime minister had been pushing for a meeting with Singh in New York.

KABUL: An Afghan soldier opened fire Thursday on his Nato trainers, killing one and wounding several others in the country’s east, officials said.

Attacks in which Afghan forces turn their guns on their international partners have killed scores of US-led troops, breeding mistrust and undermining efforts to train local forces before Nato combat troops withdraw next year.

The latest shooting was at a military training facility and base in the eastern province of Paktia, known to be one of the hotbeds of the Taliban insurgency, an Afghan official said.

The soldier attached to Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was inside the base when attacked, Rohullah Samoon, the local administration spokesman, told AFP from the provincial capital Gadez.

ISAF said the attacker, described as “wearing Afghan national security forces uniform”, was killed in return fire from other troops on the ground.

ISAF did not provide further details including the exact location of the incident or the nationality of the victim.

Attacks of this nature, locally known as “insider” or “green on blue” are common in Afghanistan where Afghan troops, some of them reportedly affiliated to insurgent groups, turn on Nato and US allies.

An Afghan soldier shot dead three US soldiers during a training exercise in Paktia last Saturday.

BAGHDAD: A bomb exploded in a crowded market in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, killing at least seven people and wounding 15, officials said.

The blast in the Dura area of south Baghdad marks the latest in a spate of attacks at markets, which are frequently targeted by militants seeking to cause maximum casualties.

Iraq is witnessing the worst violence since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal sectarian conflict.

There are persistent fears that Iraq will return to the all-out Sunni-Shia sectarian violence that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.

With the latest violence, more than 680 people have been killed this month and over 4,500 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

Diplomats and analysts say the Shia-led government's failure to address the grievances of the Sunni Arab minority, who complain of political exclusion and abuses at the hands of the security forces, has driven the spike in violence this year.

Sectarian tensions created by the civil war in neighbouring Syria have also fuelled the violence rocking Iraq.

MADRID: Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice in the second half to give Real Madrid a hard-fought 2-1 away win at Elche in the Spanish league Wednesday.

In a lackluster, strategic match, Elche defender Eduardo Albacar struck a free kick that David Lomban back-headed toward goal, forcing an athletic save from goalkeeper Diego Lopez in the 10th minute.

Ronaldo scored from a direct free kick in the 50th minute which bounced just in front of goalkeeper Manuel Herrera, who got a touch but was unable to deflect the ball.

''It was a very difficult match in which our opponents played very well and caused us some problems, and there was that goal near the end that we shouldn't have conceded,'' said Lopez.

Ghanaian striker Richmond Boakye who is on loan to Elche from Juventus, headed a perfectly-aimed shot into goal from an Albacar cross in injury time.

Madrid was then awarded a much-argued penalty one minute later as defender Pepe wrestled with Elche midfielder Carlos Sanchez in the penalty area during a free kick.

Ronaldo stepped up to convert the shot, six minutes into injury time.

''We have to be realists, but they have scored two goals against us from two actions that from my point of view should not have gone against us,'' said Albacar. ''I end up with the sensation that they have robbed us. From having got a draw against a very good team, I go away feeling we've been mugged.''

Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said that as a general rule he did not like talking about referee's decisions. ''It's difficult to comment because my position from the bench is not so good, but I spoke to Pepe and he told me the penalty was clear.''

Madrid's recent star signing Gareth Bale was sidelined due to a left thigh injury sustained during training last week.

Elsewhere, two goals each by Ivan Rakitic and Carlos Bacca gave Sevilla a 4-1 win over nine-man Rayo Vallecano.

An injury time goal by Brazil midfielder Jonas gave Valencia a 1-0 win over Granada.

Barcelona leads the standings with Atletico Madrid second-place, also on 18 points after six matches, but on a worse goal differential.

Real Madrid is third on 16 with Valencia seventh on nine, while Granada is 14th on five, Elche is 18th on three and Rayo is bottom, also on three.

SYDNEY: Former England batsman Graeme Hick was Wednesday named high performance coach at Cricket Australia's Centre of Excellence, tasked with developing the next generation of scorers and turning around the side's recent batting malaise.

Hick, 47, replaced former Australian Test player Stuart Law who became head coach at Queensland Cricket after Darren Lehmann left the position in June to become Australia's national coach.

“Graeme knows what it takes to compete at the top level and has had many years' experience playing in different conditions, which will be vital to the development of our young batters,” said Cricket Australia's Pat Howard.

“His main role will be working with our development teams including Australia A, Under 19 players and those in our current pathway system,” said Howard, who is executive general manager team performance.

One of the first tasks for Hick will be attending a Cricket Australia batting forum in Sydney next month.

“The forum will bring together a number for former Australian cricketers and current coaches and will provide information that will feed into the creation of a national batting programme that Graeme will be charged with developing and implementing,” said Howard.

Australia's performance in the recent five-match Ashes series in England, won by England 3-0, highlighted their susceptibility to top-order collapses, including one in Durham which saw Australia lose the fourth Test by 74 runs.

Hick, who retired from first-class cricket in 2008 with 136 centuries and 41,112 first-class runs, said he had developed a “huge amount of respect for Australian cricket” over the years.

“I am excited about the chance to work with Australia's young talent and being able to assist in their growth and development,” said Hick who played for Zimbabwe before moving to England where he played 65 Tests.

“This is going to be a great challenge for me and one I am really looking forward to.”

The Centre of Excellence is based in Brisbane.

ROME: Three boats carrying more than 700 asylum-seekers — some of whom were Syrian refugees — landed in Italy on Wednesday, the Coastguard said.

The new arrivals reflected a sharp increase in boats landing with people fleeing conflict-torn parts of the Mediterranean region and the Horn of Africa.

Two of the boats arrived on the island of Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost point and a major gateway for undocumented migration into the European Union.

The first boat had 398 Syrians on board, the second had 111 whose nationality was yet to be determined.

The latest arrivals have caused severe overcrowding in the temporary migrant centre on the tiny island, which can only house 350 people and was already too full.

A third boat, which was spotted by a patrol plane on Tuesday, arrived in the port of Syracuse in Sicily with around 200 people on board, including 70 children.

The UN refugee agency earlier this month said that at more than 20,000, the number of asylum-seekers arriving in Italy was already around triple the whole of 2012, with most coming from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria.

A 22-year-old Syrian woman was found dead on a boat that arrived on Saturday with 339 people on board. Her funeral was held in Sicily on Wednesday.

NAIROBI: Somalia's Shebab insurgents claimed Wednesday 137 hostages they had seized died in a Nairobi shopping mall siege, figures impossible to verify and higher than the number of people officially registered as missing.

The Al-Qaeda-linked fighters, in a message posted on Twitter, said “137 hostages who were being held by the mujaheddin” had died.

They also accused Kenyan troops of using “chemical agents” to end the four-day stand-off.

“In an act of sheer cowardice, beleaguered Kenyan forces deliberately fired projectiles containing chemical agents,” one tweet read.

“To cover their crime, the Kenyan government carried out a demolition to the building, burying evidence and all hostages under the rubble.” President Uhuru Kenyatta announced an end to the 80-hour bloodbath late Tuesday, with the “immense” loss of 61 civilians and six members of the security forces.

Police said the death toll was provisional, with the Kenyan Red Cross listing 63 people as still missing.

There was no immediate response from Kenya's government, but the Shebab have in past made repeated outlandish claims, especially on their Twitter site.

The Shebab said they carried out the attack in retaliation for Kenya's two-year battle against the extremists' bases in the country.

In one of the worst attacks in Kenya's history, the militants marched into the four-storey, part Israeli-owned mall at midday Saturday, spraying shoppers with automatic weapons fire and tossing grenades.

Kenya on Wednesday began three days of official mourning, with flags flying at half mast, while rescue workers scoured the wreckage of the mall for bodies.

Close to 200 were wounded in the four-day siege, which saw running battles between militants and security forces in the complex, Nairobi's largest shopping centre and popular with wealthy Kenyans, diplomats, UN workers and other expatriates.

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities have shut down the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice newspaper in Cairo, the latest move aimed at crushing the Islamist movement, the Brotherhood said on Wednesday.

“We the journalists of the Freedom and Justice newspaper condemn the security forces for closing down the headquarters of the newspaper,” the Brotherhood said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.

Police stormed the building overnight and removed the contents. A source at the Cairo Security Department said the raid followed Monday's court ruling which banned the Brotherhood and ordered its funds seized.

“A court ruling was issued to do it on charges of inciting violence and terrorism in the recent past,” a security source said, referring to the operation.

The army overthrew Mursi in July, and the Brotherhood has seen hundreds of its members killed and thousands arrested since then.

The campaign had forced many of the 50 journalists who produced the daily Freedom and Justice to work in secret to avoid arrest.

The newspaper, named after the Brotherhood's political wing, had focused on efforts to reverse what it called a military coup against an elected government.

The Brotherhood emerged from the shadows to win parliamentary and presidential elections after autocrat Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011.

Many Egyptians became disillusioned with Mursi after he gave himself sweeping powers and mismanaged the economy, taking to the streets in protest and prompting the army move.

The Wales forward, an £85.3m summer signing from Tottenham,played 62 minutes before being replaced.

Bale, 24, levelled with a tap-in on 38 minutes after Cani had opened the scoring for the hosts.

Cristiano Ronaldo put Real ahead but Bale's former Spurs team-mate Giovani Dos Santos equalised on 70 minutes.

Bale's price tag meant he overtook new team-mate Ronaldo as the world's most expensive footballer. The Portuguese joined Real for £80m from Manchester United in 2009.

He has not played a full match yet this season because of a foot injury and managed 32 minutes in Wales' 3-0 defeat by Serbia on Tuesday.

But manager Carlo Ancelotti opted to hand the Welshman his first start of the campaign, playing him in a right wing role alongside Ronaldo and Isco.

And, after a quiet start, Bale started to repay the money spent on him by cancelling out Villarreal's opener, converting Daniel Carvajal's pull back from inside the six-yard box.

The former Southampton left-back almost scored a second after the break, firing inches over from long range, before he was replaced by Angel Di Maria after the hour mark.

The draw was Real's and Villarreal's first dropped points of the season, with Barcelona and Atletico Madrid the only sides left in the league with a 100% record.

Real visit Turkish side Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday.

Bale, who joined Spurs for £10m from Southampton in 2007, scored 26 goals last season as he was named both the Professional Footballers' Association's and Football Writers' player of the year.

The Wales star has signed a £300,000 per week, six-year deal at the Bernabeu.

But a White House statement cautioned that the US expected Syria "to live up to its public commitments".

The US-Russian framework document stipulates that Syria must provide details of its stockpile within a week.

If Syria fails to comply, the deal could be enforced by a UN resolution.

China, France, the UK, the UN and Nato have all expressed satisfaction at the agreement.

In Beijing, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Sunday that China "welcomes the general agreement between the US and Russia".

"This agreement will enable tensions in Syria to be eased," he said.

However, there has so far been no reaction from Damascus.

In the White House statement, President Obama said that the US-Russian deal "represents an important, concrete step toward the goal of moving Syria's chemical weapons under international control so that they may ultimately be destroyed".

However the president warned that while the US would continue working with Russia, the United Kingdom, France, the United Nations and others to ensure that destruction-or-removal process was verifiable, there would be "consequences should the Assad regime not comply with the framework".

"If diplomacy fails, the United States remains prepared to act," he said.

The Pentagon has backed up the president, saying on Saturday that America was still in position for military strikes.

Last-ditch option

The US says the Syrian regime killed hundreds in a gas attack last month.

The government of Bashar al-Assad denies the allegations and has accused the rebels of carrying out the attack on 21 August.

Syria recently agreed to join the global Chemical Weapons Convention, and on Saturday the UN said it would come under the treaty from 14 October.

In a joint news conference in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry warned President Assad that there must be nothing less than full compliance by his government.

Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov said if Syria failed to comply, then a UN resolution would be sought under Chapter VII of the UN charter, which allows for the use of force.

However the Russian foreign minister was eager to make clear that force remained a last-ditch option.

"Naturally, no use of force is mentioned in these agreed approaches. Nor are any automatic sanctions mentioned. Any violations must be convincingly and unambiguously proven in the UN Security Council," he said.

Russia and the US have agreed on an assessment that the Syrian government possesses 1,000 tonnes of chemical agents and precursors, according to a US official.

The US believes the materials are located in 45 sites, all in government hands, half of which have useable quantities of chemical agents.

But it is thought that Russia does not agree on the number of sites, nor that they are all under the government's control.

'Unfettered access'

The agreement says initial on-site inspections must be completed by November.

It also stipulates that production equipment be destroyed by then, with "complete elimination of all chemical weapons material and equipment in the first half of 2014".

Mr Kerry outlined six points to the agreement which included Syria placing his chemical weapons under international control within a week and allowing weapons inspectors "immediate, unfettered access" to all sites so that whatever is found can be destroyed.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is visiting Beijing, said it was an "important advance" while British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement: "The onus is now on the Assad regime to comply with this agreement in full.

Analysts however remain divided.

Former British ambassador to Syria Sir Andrew Green said that although there would practical difficulties in implementing the deal, it was a diplomatic coup for Russia and "remarkably good news".

"[Firstly] it avoids military action, at least for the time being. Secondly it effectively removes the risk of any further use of chemical weapons by the regime. And thirdly and perhaps more importantly, it generates a dialogue and a co-operation with Russia," he said.

But former US Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz - along with Republican senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham - was much more sceptical about the deal.

"Whatever gains it brings in terms of reducing the likelihood of additional chemical weapons use, it's clearly going to come at the price of taking off the table any serious US or western action against the Assad regime, which is a great victory for him and for his Russian and Iranian backers," Mr Wolfowitz said.

The military leader of the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army has rejected the deal and promised to continue fighting.

"There is nothing in this agreement that concerns us," said Gen Salim Idriss, describing it as a Russian initiative designed to gain time for the Syrian government.

Mr Kerry is due in Israel on Sunday to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and will then go to Paris to meet his French, British and Saudi counterparts.

Meanwhile there has been more fighting on the ground in Syria with clashes between government forces and rebels in the suburbs of Damascus, including some of the same areas affected by the 21 August attack.

More than 100,000 people have died since the uprising against President Assad began in 2011.

Millions of Syrians have fled the country, mostly to neighbouring nations. However, on Saturday, Italy's coastguard said more than 500 people, mostly Syrians, had been rescued off the Italian coast.

Millions more have been internally displaced within Syria.

During her two-day trip Singh will meet foreign and home minister Madhav Prasad Ghimire, her counterpart Arjun Bahadur Thapa and other dignitaries and leaders of political parties.

This is Singh's first visit to Nepal since assuming charge last month. She is accompanied by a team of senior external affairs ministry officials.

The visit coincides with a debate among political parties on whether to hold election in November as announced or defer it to March-April as demanded by Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist.

The Mohan Baidya-led CPN-M has sought removal of the non-political interim government and holding of a round table conference of parties as pre-conditions to taking part in the election.

India wants polls to be held early to end the long political transition in Nepal and has agreed to provide all logistical support for the same including supply of 764 vehicles at a cost of Rs. 50 crore.

Lavrov referred to the section of the charter that provides for enforcement through sanctions, including the possible use of military force, saying that the Security Council expects Syria to comply fully with the demands of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Nevertheless, he cautioned that the Security Council would not accept reports of chemical weapons violations automatically but that they would be investigated.

"Of course it does not mean that each violation reported to the Security Council will be taken on trust. Each will be investigated. We will try to ensure authenticity," he said.

Lavrov praised the agreement between the US and Russia as a "consensus, a compromise and professional".

The Epsilon rocket is about half the size of Japan's previous generation of space vehicles, and uses artificial intelligence to perform safety checks.

Japan's space agency Jaxa says the Epsilon cost $37m (£23m) to develop, half the cost of its predecessor.

Epsilon launched from south-western Japan in the early afternoon.

Crowds of Japanese gathered to watch the launch, which was also broadcast on the internet.

It was carrying a telescope that is being billed by Jaxa as the world's first space telescope that will remotely observe planets including Venus, Mars and Jupiter from its Earth orbit.

Jaxa said the rocket successfully released the Sprint-A telescope as scheduled, about 1,000km (620 miles) above the Earth's surface.

Epsilon's predecessor, the M-5, was retired in 2006 because of spiralling costs.

Jaxa said the Epsilon was not only cheaper to produce, but also cheaper to launch than the M-5.

Because of its artificial intelligence, the new rocket needs only eight people at the launch site, compared with 150 people for earlier launches.

Japan's other recent space innovations included sending a talking robot to the International Space Station.

Smoke rises following an explosion at a smuggling tunnel dug beneath the Gaza-Egypt border in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on August 31, 2013. Egypt military has blown up more tunnels on the Egyptian side of the border with the besieged Gaza Strip, security sources say.

BHUBANESWAR: Security forces killed 14 Maoists in a firefight in eastern India on Saturday, police said, marking the latest bloodshed in a long conflict in which the rebels have been battling to overthrow the government.

It was the single biggest rebel death toll in Orissa state from one incident and came amid an intense anti-Maoist campaign in the area conducted over the past month, police said.

“Fourteen rebels, including one woman cadre, were killed. We are awaiting further information,” Orissa state police director general Prakash Mishra told AFP.

There were no immediate reports of casualties among security forces, Mishra added.

The Maoists have grown from a rag-tag band of ideologues into a potent insurgent force, creating a so-called “Red Corridor” that stretches throughout central and eastern India.

Saturday's battle occurred in the Padia forest area of mineral-rich but impoverished Orissa state some 650 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of state capital Bhubaneswar.

The security forces, acting on a tip-off, were conducting a sweep of the area for rebels when they came across the Maoist camp, police said, adding authorities now were looking for more insurgents in the area.

The area where the battle took place was close to rebel-hit Chhattisgarh state. Police said a cache of explosives, arms and ammunition and Maoist literature was seized from the camp site.

Local media reported the rebel group camping in the forest was suspected of involvement in a May 25 ambush by Maoists of a convoy of Congress leaders in neighbouring Chhattisgarh state.

That attack in a remote tribal belt killed some 24 people, including 12 local Congress leaders and supporters.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoists as the country's most serious internal security threat and there are frequent outbreaks of violence in areas in which the rebels are present.

Maoist rebels have been fighting in the forests and rural areas for what they say are the rights of tribal people, who have some of India's highest rates of illiteracy and poverty, and landless farmers for decades.

They demand land and jobs for the poor, and want to establish a communist society by toppling what they call India's “semi-colonial, semi-feudal” form of rule. The revolt is believed to have cost tens of thousands of lives.

The Maoists are believed to be present in at least 20 states but are most active in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, occupying thousands of square kilometers (miles) of land.

Critics believe attempts to end the revolt through security offensives are doomed to fail, saying the real solution is better governance and development.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Canada's foreign minister John Baird is calling Syria's offer to begin providing information on its chemical arsenal 30 days after it signs an international convention banning such weapons "ridiculous and absurd."

Baird said Syrian President Bashar Assad could not be given extra time. Baird said: "This is a man, who up until a week ago denied that they had any such weapons."

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who joined Baird at a news conference Saturday in Istanbul, also expressed skepticism, saying that Assad was playing for time while continuing to commit atrocities.

The comments come as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were in Geneva negotiating a Russian proposal to inventory, isolate and eventually destroy Syria's chemical weapons stocks.

Kerry has rejected Syria's suggestion that it should turn over information, rather than weapons.

Davutoglu said Turkey welcomed the diplomatic initiative to remove Syria's chemical weapons, but it was still incumbent on the international community to bring to justice the Syrian officials responsible for crimes against humanity.

Western countries blame Assad for the use of chemical weapons, although he denies blames rebels engaged in a 2-year-old civil war against his government.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LUKA: Thirty-seven people were killed when a fire swept through a wooden psychiatric hospital in northwest Russia overnight Thursday, in the latest tragedy to hit the country's mental health institutions.

The fire was started by a patient who was either smoking or deliberately set fire to his bed at the hospital in the village of Luka, 220 kilometres (137 miles) southeast of Saint Petersburg, officials said.

The institution was made out of wood and officials said it had been previously warned by the judicial authorities to improve its fire security.

A criminal probe has been opened into suspected negligence.

"During a fire in the Oksochi psychiatric hospital 37 people died," regional investigators said in a statement, adding that 10 people have already been pulled from the debris.

"A 46-year-old nurse who was saving people perished in the fire," investigators added.

The fire, which broke out in the middle of the night, reduced the aged wooden building on the outskirts of the village to smouldering wreckage.

Rescue teams were combing through the debris, and bodies in black plastic bags were taken away from the scene.

Novgorod region governor Sergei Mitin told AFP at the scene that 23 people had been rescued.

Ilya Denisov, a representative of the emergencies ministry, did not rule out that more survivors could be found.

He said the firefighters were quick to react but that by the time they arrived the fire had consumed the entire building.

Local authorities said the hospital housed patients with grave psychological disorders, making evacuation even more complicated.

Lidiya Vasilyeva, 40, who lives near the hospital, said the fire broke out around 2:00 am.

"The fire spread very quickly," she said. "Many patients were pushed out of the windows, many did not want to come out or did not come out immediately, it was very scary."

She said it was difficult to pinpoint the cause of the blaze but suggested a patient might be at fault.

"In the summer they brought a patient here who they say was suffering from pyromania," she told AFP.

Investigators said they had opened a criminal probe into suspected negligence causing death.

"According to preliminary information, one of the patients set fire to himself and his bed," said the investigative committee, a Russian law enforcement agency that probes major cases.

Officials said concerns had already been aired about the state of the building, and Russian state television said the authorities had been planning to close down the hospital.

"This building had a weak resistance to fire. It was made of wood. The administration had been told by the legal authorities to remedy numerous violations in fire security by August 1," said the head of oversight at the emergencies ministry, Yuri Deshovykh.

"But this was not done," he was quoted as saying.

The Kremlin's human rights envoy, Vladimir Lukin, sounded the alarm over the state of psychiatric hospitals in the country, calling for a joint effort to improve oversight.

"The entire society, people should protect citizens who have found themselves in a unique, difficult situation when they cannot protect themselves," Lukin said on popular radio station Moscow Echo.

The fire was the latest tragedy to hit a medical institution in Russia, which struggles with outdated Soviet-era infrastructure and lax security procedures.

In April, a fire that ravaged a psychiatric hospital in the Moscow region killed 38 people, most of them patients engulfed by flames as they slept behind barred windows.

In 2006, a fire in a Moscow drug rehabilitation clinic killed 45 women, many of whom were trapped by metal bars on the windows that staff could not open.

COLOMBO: A train linking the political home of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels with the rest of the island rolled into service on Saturday after a 23-year interruption, officials said.

The train, carrying President Mahinda Rajapakse, arrived in the town of Kilinochchi, 330 kilometres (200 miles) north of the capital Colombo, four years after the end of a nearly four-decade civil war.

The project is part of efforts to promote reconciliation with the Tamil minority and heal the scars of the long-running separatist conflict.

A new track had to be laid along a 63-kilometre stretch of the line inside the former war zone because the rebels had removed rails and used sleepers to build bunkers during the war, officials said.

Rajapakse was carrying "a message of friendship" from the Sinhalese people in the south to the Tamil-dominated north, the president's office said in a statement.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam launched their struggle for a separate Tamil homeland in 1972 and set up their political headquarters in Kilinochchi in 1995.

The war ended 14 years later in 2009 after a no-holds-barred military offensive.

Before the conflict escalated, trains regularly operated between Colombo and Kilinochchi and further north to the Jaffna peninsula.

The newly laid stretch of line is Sri Lanka's fastest track and can accommodate speeds up to 120 kilometres (75 miles) an hour, officials said.

The link is due to be extended to Jaffna by the end of next year. Road access to the peninsula was bitterly contested during the height of the war, with thousands killed while trying to take control of the main supply route to Jaffna.

The rebels also attacked passenger and cargo trains operating in the war zone forcing the railways to abandon regular services.

Saturday's reopening of the line came ahead of local council elections in the north.

The September 21 vote is in line with Colombo's promise to share limited power with Tamils through a local council.

Getting off the train at the newly constructed Kilinochchi railway station, Rajapakse attended an afternoon political rally in support of his United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) candidates, the president's office said.

The Sinhalese-dominated government is under international pressure to promote ethnic reconciliation and investigate allegations of war crimes by its forces in the final stages of the war.

Railways were established in Sri Lanka by its British colonial-era rulers in 1864 for the transport of coffee and tea from the central region of the island to the main sea port of Colombo.