World News: Merkel vows an 'intense' probe into festival deaths

German media said as many as 1.4 million people turned up at the Love Parade, where a mass panic on Saturday crushed 19 people to death and injured 342 others.

Police blamed organisers and officials in Duisburg, an industrial city that gave the world's largest techno music festival a home after it was driven from Berlin because of noise and overcrowding.

Witnesses, however, blamed police and private security staff, saying the panic broke out after they closed the end of a tunnel - the only entrance to the grounds - when the venue became full.

Police denied that and said they actually opened a second exit to disperse the masses before the accident happened.

It remained unclear what exactly triggered the panic, but it appeared that several people trying to escape the pushing crowds climbed up a steep metal stairway on a ramp in front of the tunnel and fell into the crowd.

Amateur footage showed thousands crammed wall to wall.

One dead in post-election bomb blast

Thailand: A bomb at a bus stop killed one person and wounded ten others shortly after polls closed in a parliamentary election that pitted a government candidate against a jailed leader of recent mass protests.

MEXICO: Guards and officials at a prison let inmates out, lent them guns and allowed them to use official vehicles to carry out drug-related killings, including the massacre of 17 people, prosecutors claimed.

Chavez warns US over dispute

President Hugo Chavez has threatened to cut off oil sales to the US if Venezuela is attacked by its American-allied neighbour Colombia, amid a dispute.

Mr Chavez said the US was "the big one to blame for all the tension in this part of the world".

Atom project in cash plea

Scientists behind the European atom smasher aimed at uncovering the secrets of the universe want to build an even bigger machine.

Scientists will spell out their ambitions in Paris today. They are reaching out to China, India and Russia to help fund the project.

Terror chief gets 19 years

A FORMER Khmer Rouge chief jailer was sentenced to 19 years behind bars today after a United Nations-backed tribunal found him guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kaing Guek Eav listened impassively as the chief judge read out the verdict.

It was the first verdict to be handed down against a senior member of the genocidal regime blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people during 1975-79.

Teen survives balcony plunge

A 15-YEAR-OLD boy has survived a 16-storey plunge from the balcony of his family's New Zealand apartment.

The boy was playing on the balcony when he fell, dropping through the roof of a car park on to the concrete. He was in stable condition in hospital.