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[OMEN]

A roadside bomb has exploded near a crowded passenger bus in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, killing 20 people and wounding 47.

The blast occurred during the morning rush hour in the southern suburb of Moratuwa. The military blamed Tamil Tiger rebels for the blast, the latest attack on civilians in or near the capital this year.

"The bomb was planted on the road side, hidden in a bush and then exploded using a remote control," said an official of the police bomb disposal unit, asking not to be named.

A Reuters witness said the bus was shredded by shrapnel and the floor was covered in blood and debris.

"I was on my way to office and suddenly I heard a loud explosion and saw people screaming with blood all over," said Aruna Wickramarachchi, a 45-year-old hotel worker.

"My leg was also injured from the explosion," Wickramarachchi said, adding that she was among about 100 passengers on the bus.

The latest attack comes as Sri Lanka's military presses its offensive to retake the Tamil Tigers' northern stronghold in daily land, sea and air attacks in a civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people since 1983.

The military blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the blast.

"It is the LTTE who are behind the explosion," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara.

The attack comes two days after the military blamed the rebels for a bomb blast on a railway track that wounded 27 civilians in Colombo.

The rebels, who are fighting for an independent state in the north and east of the island, were not immediately available for comment but usually deny involvement in such attacks.

Fighting between the military and the LTTE has intensified since the government formally pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact in January, though a renewed civil war has been raging since 2006.

Analysts say the military has the upper hand in the latest phase of the long-running war given superior air power, strength of numbers and swathes of terrain captured in the island's east.

But they still see no clear winner on the horizon.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Israeli troops have killed a Palestinian gunman during an incursion into the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops operating close to the border east of Gaza City spotted an armed man and shot him. She said an Israeli soldier was wounded in the exchange.

In an air strike earlier on Friday, a missile destroyed an outpost belonging to Hamas militants, critically wounding one gunman. A number of bystanders were also hurt, Hamas said.

A second air strike was aimed at a building suspected of being a munitions workshop in Gaza City. The army spokeswoman said the missile missed its intended target.

The attacks came in response to a cross-border mortar strike on an Israeli industrial plant near the Gaza frontier on Thursday which killed a factory worker. A young Palestinian girl was killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday.

Israel has tightened a blockade on the Gaza Strip and often conducts air strikes and raids into the territory which it says are aimed at ending frequent rocket and mortar fire at towns and agricultural communities close to the border.

Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction a year ago in a brief but bloody civil war.

Violence along the Gaza border has marred peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas, who holds sway in the West Bank. Egypt has so far failed in efforts to broker a truce to curb the rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A 14-year-old boy has been charged over an explosion and fire which caused $A5 million worth of damage to a school in southwestern NSW.

The Hay High School's science/library building suffered severe structural damage in the explosion on July 3 last year, police said.

"Police believe the explosion was as a result of arson," a NSW Police statement said.

Local detectives investigated the incident with the arson squad.

Deniliquin Sergeant Miles Rogers said the damage to the school had affected many people in the community.

"Debris from the explosion including a solid external door travelled some 50 metres off the block and neighbouring homes and shops had windows broken," Sgt Rogers said.

A 14-year-old Hay youth has been charged with aggravated break and enter and with committing a serious indictable offence.

He was given conditional bail to appear at Hay Children's Court on July 7.

- AAP

[OMEN]

A gas explosion and fire aboard a cargo ship undergoing repairs at a shipyard in Russia's Kaliningrad region has killed three workers with seven more still missing.

The blast onboard the Yenisei was caused by a "violation of safety rules caused by work on the fuel tank," RIA reported, quoting a source close to the investigation.

Reuters

**More News to follow on this Story***

[OMEN]

Likely US Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and former rival Hillary Clinton have met privately at her home in Washington, news media reported.

CNN reported it was "a small meeting" with perhaps just the two senators and a few aides in attendance.

There were no details of what was being discussed.

There is intense speculation Obama might pick Clinton as his running mate for November's presidential election against Republican John McCain.

Obama has said the process would take time. Clinton, who has expressed an interest in running as vice president, sought to distance herself on Thursday from efforts by supporters to convince Obama to pick her, saying the choice was up to him.

Obama, an Illinois senator, clinched the Democratic nomination on Tuesday. Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, did not immediately concede but told supporters in a letter she would formally back Obama on Saturday.

The meeting with Obama was initiated by Clinton after a daylong series of talks between their aides, The New York Times reported on its website.

Obama had been scheduled to fly back to Chicago after a rally in northern Virginia but stayed behind for the meeting, shedding his campaign plane and the traveling press corps and entourage, the newspaper said.

- Reuters

[OMEN]

Dirt that the Phoenix Mars Lander scooped recently from the planet's surface may be too clumpy to be analysed by the machine's onboard system, Nasa says.

A robotic arm retrieved a cup-sized sample of Martian dirt on Friday and placed it on the lander's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyser, or TEGA, which was scheduled to spend about a week determining the soil's water and mineral content.

The TEGA features a screened opening that prevents large particles from clogging it. Only those thinner than 1mm can pass through, and an infrared beam verifies whether they have entered the instrument.

The beam has not yet confirmed any activity and researchers are not sure why, Nasa said in a statement.

Scientists suspect the soil may be clumped together too tightly, Nasa said.

"In the future, we may prepare the soil by pushing down on the surface ... then sprinkle a smaller amount over the door," Ray Arvidson, the team's science lead, said in the statement.

Engineers are also looking for a way to shake some of the current sample down into the TEGA oven, where it would be heated and analyzed.

Scientists may send instructions to vibrate the compartment after they inspect the problem for a day or two, spokeswoman Sara Hammond said.

The lander will also gather other soil samples, examine them with a microscope and mix them with water to determine their composition, Hammond said.

The $US420 million ($NZ554.30 million) lander spent 10 months journeying from Earth and touched down on Mars 12 days ago. Its three-month mission was proposed after the Mars Odyssey detected frozen water below the Martian surface in 2002.

This is the lander's first attempt to analyse soil, which might contain salt left behind by evaporated water or ice.

The single-use compartment will go unused if scientists are unable to coax any particles to fall down, but there are seven others like it onboard, Hammond said.

Reuters

[OMEN]

An underground gas explosion at a colliery in Ukraine's Donbass coalfield injured at least three miners with a further 37 missing, officials said.

The blast occurred at about 5am Sunday local time, about 1 km underground at the Karl Marx pit in the Donetsk region, the heart of the coalfield.

"The blast was very powerful. It shattered windows in the mine's administrative office and damaged the paneling of a lift," said Marina Nikitina, spokeswoman for the regional mine safety inspectorate.

Nikitina said four miners had been injured and 37 were missing.

Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry put the number of injured at three, with 40 unaccounted for.

Gas explosions are a frequent occurrence in Ukraine's outdated mines, many of which are loss-making and date from the 19th century.

Three explosions at the Zasyadko mine in Donetsk late last year killed 106 men in two weeks.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Pakistan's ruling party has said it is determined to curtail the powers of the presidency in favour of parliament, whether President Pervez Musharraf likes it or not.

Staunch US ally Musharraf, facing a chorus of calls to resign, told journalists at the weekend, in his first meeting with the media for weeks, that he had no plan to quit.

At the same time, Musharraf sounded a generally conciliatory tone saying parliament, dominated by opponents since his allies were defeated in a February election, was supreme.

Musharraf's fate has consumed the attention of the new coalition since the polls, despite an economy that is deteriorating rapidly and a potent threat from al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Pakistan's stock market and currency have both come under pressure because of a combination of factors, including the uncertainty over Musharraf and worry about more turmoil in the nuclear-armed country.

In the meeting with journalists at the weekend, Musharraf said he would accept proposed constitutional amendments the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto aimed to push through parliament.

But in what media interpreted as a warning he would not tolerate a cut in his powers, a confident-sounding Musharraf indicated he would not like to be reduced to a ceremonial head of state, saying he could not become a "useless vegetable".

The PPP brushed aside any objections, saying parliament was sovereign and could make or amend laws and the constitution regardless of whether Musharraf liked it or not.

"Such hollow warnings would not deter the democratic forces from restoring the powers of the parliament," PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement.

Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, who leads her party, has called Musharraf a "relic of the past" and says the PPP does not recognise him as a constitutional president.

Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister former army chief Musharraf overthrew in a 1999 coup and who leads the second largest party in parliament, wants Musharraf impeached or tried for treason.

Sharif's brother, Shahbaz, was on Sunday elected chief minister of Punjab, the country's richest and politically most important province, bolstering the power of their party that won the most seat in the province's assembly in February.

Reuters