World

SURABAYA, Indonesia/JAKARTA — Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo on Tuesday, prompting relatives of those on board watching TV footage to break down in tears.

Indonesia AirAsia's Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, lost contact with air traffic control early on Sunday during bad weather on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

The navy said 40 bodies had been recovered. The plane has yet to be found.

"My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501," airline boss Tony Fernandes tweeted. "On behalf of AirAsia, my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am."

The airline said in a statement that it was inviting family members to Surabaya, "where a dedicated team of care providers will be assigned to each family to ensure that all of their needs are met".

Pictures of floating bodies were broadcast on television and relatives of the missing already gathered at a crisis centre in Surabaya wept with heads in their hands. Several people collapsed in grief and were helped away.

Yohannes and his wife were at the centre awaiting news of her brother, Herumanto Tanus, and two of his children who were on board the doomed flight.

The Tanus family had been on their way to visit Herumanto's son, who studies in Singapore and who travelled to Surabaya on Monday after the plane went missing.

"He cries every time he watches the news," Yohannes said.

The mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, comforted relatives and urged them to be strong.

"They are not ours, they belong to God," she said.

Searching through
the night

A navy spokesman said a plane door, oxygen tanks and one body had been recovered and taken away by helicopter for tests.

"The challenge is waves up to three metres high," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters, adding that the search operation would go on all night. He declined to answer questions on whether any survivors had been found.

About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have been involved in the search.

The plane, which did not issue a distress signal, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic, officials said.

It was travelling at 32,000 feet (9,753 metres) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet, officials said earlier.

Pilots and aviation experts said thunderstorms, and requests to gain altitude to avoid them, were not unusual in that area.

The Indonesian pilot was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, the airline said.

Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

Investigators are focusing initially on whether the crew took too long to request permission to climb, or could have ascended on their own initiative earlier, said a source close to the probe, adding that poor weather could have played a part as well.

He cautioned that the investigation was at an early stage and the black box flight recorders had yet to be recovered.

Clues when things
go wrong

The plane, whose engines were made by CFM International, co-owned by General Electric and Safran of France, lacked real-time engine diagnostics or monitoring, a GE spokesman said.

Such systems are mainly used on long-haul flights and can provide clues to airlines and investigators when things go wrong.

Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travellers across the region.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Bizarrely, an AirAsia plane from Manila skidded off and overshot the runway on landing at Kalibo in the central Philippines on Tuesday. No one was hurt.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

US law enforcement and security officials said passenger and crew lists were being examined but nothing significant had turned up and the incident was regarded as an unexplained accident.

Indonesia AirAsia is 49 per cent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian
budget operations began in 2002.

ROME — The death toll after a ferry caught fire in rough seas in the Adriatic rose to ten Monday with dozens of passengers still unaccounted for.

It was unclear whether the missing passengers had drowned or otherwise died unnoticed or whether the ill-fated Norman Atlantic's manifest lists were inaccurate.

Pending resolution of the issue, the Italian navy was continuing to search for bodies around the stricken ferry, which remained in waters close to Albania hours after nightfall.

As survivors described a terrifying ordeal that could easily have claimed far more lives, Italian Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi confirmed that a total of 427 people had been winched to safety by helicopter over the course of a 24-hour rescue operation carried out in the teeth of an unusually fierce winter storm.

With the ten confirmed dead, that left 41 people unaccounted for in comparison to the list of passengers and crew released by the ferry's Greek operator on Sunday.

Lupi said it was unclear if the discrepancy was due to errors on the passenger list, no-shows at boarding or people getting off at a stopover on the Greek island of Igoumenitsa.

"It is up to the departure port to match up their list and the people [rescued]," Lupi said.

"That is why we are continuing our [search] effort: We cannot know what the exact number was."

Greek Merchant Marine Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis acknowledged the list was "possibly inaccurate" and complained about poor communication with Italy.

"I strongly doubt that all the names on the list are real — we have two persons with the same name, who turned out to be one person," the minister told Mega TV.

None of the statements made by survivors of the disaster have so far given any indication that as many as 40 passengers may have died.

But there was a worrying indication of possible more bad news when an empty lifeboat washed up on the shores of Albania.

 Captain last man off 

The uncertainty over the scale of the disaster emerged after the evacuation was completed in early afternoon.

Ship captain Argilio Giacomazzi, 62, upheld maritime tradition by ensuring he was the last man off, handing over to Italian navy officers.

His conduct was in marked contrast to that of the last Italian sea captain to make global headlines, Francesco Schettino, the Costa Concordia skipper currently on trial for manslaughter abandoning a sinking cruise liner on which 32 people died in January 2012.

Wrapped in blankets and with many of them sporting bandages, 49 evacuees were landed at the Italian port of Bari by a Greek merchant ship that had been part of a multinational flotilla involved in the rescue operation.

Many of them recounted how the fire triggered chaotic scenes which the crew appeared ill-prepared to deal with.

One of the first passengers off in Bari told reporters he had thought he was going to die as parts of the boat became engulfed by thick smoke at a time when many passengers were asleep in cabins.

"The lifeboats did not work, there was only one of them in the water and none of the crew were there to help people," he said.

The evacuation was completed nearly 36 hours after a fire broke out on the car deck and left the large vessel drifting dangerously.

Questions are now being asked about how the fire started and why it was not contained. Different accounts of a safety inspection carried out on December 19 have emerged and several survivors reported the car deck as being covered by a film of leaked fuel.

Bari prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe announced a criminal investigation which will seek to establish whether negligence contributed to the disaster.

'We are dying' 

Teodora Douli, the wife of a Greek passenger who died on Sunday, described how she watched her husband Georgios drown in front of her after they ended up in the water.

"We spent four hours in the water," she said Monday. "I tried to save him but I couldn't. We are dying, we're dying, he told me.

In a poignant twist to the tragedy, the couple's son was asked to identify a corpse that was not his father's following an apparent tagging mix-up.

Other evacuees were flown to the Greek island of Corfu, where lorry driver Fotis Santakidis described how the smell of the smoke from the fire had woken him in his cabin.

"I ran out. I looked out for a lifejacket but I could not find one," he told Greek newspaper Ethnos.

ZHARI, Afghanistan — One ergonomic office chair, heaters that don't work and some maps are the only signs that US troops once battled daily with the Taliban at Siah Choy, a small combat outpost in southern Afghanistan.

Now manned by just 30 Afghan soldiers, the base is in Kandahar province's Zhari district — the birthplace of the Taliban movement and scene of years of heavy fighting as NATO forces struggled to gain a foothold in the area.

But the days of US troops leading Afghan recruits through the poppy and hashish fields are over, and the Afghan National Army (ANA) now undertakes operations without outside assistance or the comfort of air support.

"I saw many Americans come and go — some units only stayed six months," said Lieutenant Saeed Nazir, 40, senior officer at Siah Choy, where he has served since 2009.

"Often the fighting was very intense, with mortars coming into the base, big gunfights and air strikes. We had good relations with some US soldiers, and bad relations with others.

"They taught us to patrol, and gave us weapons. What we don't have any more is an air force, helicopters to take injured soldiers to hospital, or any night vision equipment.

"We're doing well, with no casualties since the Americans left [in August]. We hope it continues — I have lost 12 close colleagues fighting here over the last five years."

Two weeks before the December 31 end of NATO's combat mission, Nazir led a foot patrol through nearby villages, marking the final day of a 10-day operation involving 1,200 troops and 300 police across four districts.

The soldiers were professional, alert and well-equipped as they spread out through head-high hashish plants and discarded husks from the poppy harvest that puts Kandahar province at the centre of the global opium trade.

Hard-fought territory 

"Unlike the police, we don't bother villagers about what they grow," Nazir told AFP. "We want the local people to work with us."

Control of Zhari district swapped several times between Taliban and NATO forces in the 13-year war.

Canadian-led soldiers first won the area in 2006, lost it almost immediately, and then fought for it again in Operation Medusa — the largest set-piece battle of the whole NATO mission. More than 1,000 Taliban fighters were killed.

In 2010 and 2011, Zhari was also a main focus of President Barack Obama's surge of 30,000 extra US troops at a time when the insurgents held sway over the district.

Many civilians fled the fighting but some have since returned to their homes to tend their fields despite the risk of IEDs [improvided explosive devices], which are often triggered by sensitive pressure pads.

"The insurgents have been pushed back, but there is still activity today," said Colonel Ghulam Hazrat, officer in charge of the latest operation, codenamed "Bawar 24".

"One problem is that the army takes ground, and then the Taliban retake it. Often the police suffer a lot of the worst casualties, and they are weak due to lack of equipment."

Zhari also straddles the nationwide ring road Highway One and is a key route into Kandahar city, former capital of the Taliban.

For troops at Siah Choy, life is an austere regime of dawn patrols, drills and guard duty, fuelled by a diet of rice, beans and bread with some meat for dinner.

Temperatures fall well below freezing at night and soldiers sleep in unheated tents as the generator is not strong enough to power the US air-conditioning units.

The camp has electricity for just five hours each evening, when a few favoured officers huddle in Lieutenant Nazir's room to watch Indian satellite television channels tapped from a local cable connection.

New phase of old war 

"It is OK. I like being a soldier, but my bed at home is more comfortable," said Mohammed, 18, the youngest soldier on the base, who had just returned from leave with his family in the eastern province of Kunar.

"It took 24 hours on the road to get home, I wish the army would help more."

About 12,500 NATO troops — most of them from the US — will stay in Afghanistan into next year on a follow-up mission to support the national security forces.

Many Afghans fear the US is leaving behind a raging conflict, with recent attacks in Kabul signalling the start of a new and brutal phase of the war.

President Ashraf Ghani has said bringing peace is his government's first priority but the Taliban seem uninterested in his calls for talks, and casualties among the security forces have risen to record levels.

More than 4,600 soldiers and police were killed in the first 10 months of the year alone — a higher death toll than all NATO fatalities since 2001.

Zhari has been roiled by conflict since the 1980s when the Soviet occupation failed to pacify the district, and the Afghan army's hold on Siah Choy will be tested in the year to come.

But Lieutenant Nazir is confident. "I think we can do it. We are stronger than before," he said.

JAKARTA — Indonesia suspended until first light the search for an AirAsia plane that went missing Sunday in the Java Sea with 162 people onboard after the crew requested a change of flight plan due to stormy weather.

The Airbus A320-200 disappeared en route from Surabaya in Indonesia's east Java to Singapore, in the third crisis for a Malaysian carrier this year.

Around 11 hours later, the search halted with no sign of the plane and was set to resume at 7:00am Monday — or even earlier if the weather allows, Indonesian transport ministry official Hadi Mustofa told AFP.

AirAsia said 155 of those onboard Flight QZ8501 were Indonesians, with three South Koreans and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia, Britain and France. The Frenchman was the co-pilot.

With hard details few and far between, panicked relatives gathered at Singapore's Changi Airport and in Surabaya hundreds of Indonesians thronged the terminal.

An anguished 45-year-old woman said she had six family members on the plane.

"They were going to Singapore for a holiday," she told AFP in Surabaya. "They have always flown with AirAsia and there was no problem. I am very worried that the plane might have crashed."

Indonesian Louis Sidartha, 25, told reporters in Singapore that her fiance was onboard the flight.

They had taken separate flights from Surabaya to Singapore. She only found out about the missing aircraft upon arriving in Singapore on a later flight.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the twin-engine aircraft around an hour after it left Surabaya's Juanda International Airport at about 5:20am (2220 GMT Saturday). No signal was received from it.

Multinational search 

Shortly before disappearing, the pilot asked to ascend by 6,000 feet to 38,000 feet to avoid heavy clouds, according to an Indonesian transport ministry official.

"The plane requested to air traffic control to fly to the left side, which was approved," Djoko Murjatmodjo told a press conference.

"But their request to fly to 38,000 feet from 32,000 feet could not be approved at that time due to traffic, there was a flight above, and five minutes later the flight disappeared from radar."

"According to our climate radar, the weather was not good. There was enough cumulonimbus [cloud] there," said Murjatmodjo.

He said Indonesia had deployed seven aircraft, four navy ships and six boats from the search and rescue agency.

The search focused on waters around the islands of Bangka and Belitung in the Java Sea, across from Kalimantan on Borneo island.

But Murjatmodjo said the transport ministry had also asked the army to carry out ground searches, including in mountainous areas.

"We have focused all our strength, from the search and rescue agency, the military, police and help from the community as well as the fishermen," said rescue agency chief F.H.B. Soelistyo.

He said three ships and three planes from Malaysia would join the search Monday. A Singaporean C130 plane joined Sunday's operation, and two Singaporean planes would be deployed Monday with Australia also offering help.

'Massive shock' 

The aircraft was operated by AirAsia Indonesia, a unit of Malaysian-based AirAsia which dominates Southeast Asia's booming low-cost airline market.

AirAsia's flamboyant boss Tony Fernandes, a former record industry executive who acquired the then-failing airline in 2001, arrived in Surabaya, where most of the passengers are from.

"Obviously this is a massive shock to us and we are devastated by what has happened. It's unbelievable," he told a press conference.

"We don't want to speculate. We don't know what's happened yet so we'll wait for the accident investigation... . Our concern right now is for the relatives and the next of kin."

Indonesia's President Joko Widodo said his nation was "praying for the safety" of those onboard.

His country, a vast archipelago with poor land transport infrastructure, has seen explosive growth in low-cost air travel over recent years.

But the air industry has been blighted by poor safety standards in an area that also experiences extreme weather.

AirAsia, which has never suffered a fatal accident, said the missing jet last underwent maintenance on November 16.

Climbing to dodge large rain clouds is a standard procedure for aircraft in these conditions.

"What happens after that is a question mark," according to Indonesian-based aviation analyst Dudi Sudibyo.

The plane's disappearance comes at the end of a disastrous year for Malaysian aviation.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared on a regular flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March with 239 passengers and crew, and in July, MH17 was shot down over troubled Ukraine killing all 298 onboard.

KABUL — NATO formally ended its war in Afghanistan on Sunday, holding a low-key ceremony in Kabul after 13 years of conflict that have left the country in the grip of worsening insurgent violence.

The event was arranged in secret due to the threat of Taliban strikes in the Afghan capital, which has been hit by repeated suicide bombings and gun attacks over recent years.

"Together... we have lifted the Afghan people out of the darkness of despair and given them hope for the future," NATO commander US General John Campbell told assembled soldiers.

"You've made Afghanistan stronger and our countries safer."

On January 1, the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) combat mission, which has suffered 3,485 military deaths since 2001, will be replaced by a NATO "training and support" mission.

About 12,500 foreign troops staying in Afghanistan will not be involved in direct fighting, but will assist the Afghan army and police in their battle against the Taliban, who ruled from 1996 until 2001.

When numbers peaked in 2011, about 130,000 troops from 50 nations were part of the NATO military alliance.

"I hope you take great pride in the positive impact you've made and will continue to make upon the Afghan people," Campbell said in a speech released by ISAF on Twitter as live broadcasts were banned for security reasons.

Campbell folded up the ISAF flag and unveiled the flag of the new mission, named Resolute Support.

Sunday's ceremony — held in a sports hall at NATO headquarters — completed the gradual handover of responsiblity to the 350,000-strong Afghan forces, who have been in charge of nationwide security since last year.

But recent bloodshed has undermined claims that the insurgency is weakening and has highlighted fears that the international intervention has failed as Afghanistan faces spiralling violence.

The United Nations says that civilian casualties hit a record high in 2014, jumping by 19 per cent with 3,188 civilians killed by the end of November.

Afghan's police and army have also suffered a grim death toll, with fatalities soaring to more than 4,600 in the first 10 months of 2014 — far higher than all ISAF deaths since 2001.

Taliban strength

"The US and NATO mission was an absolute failure as today's ceremony shows," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.

"They are fleeing from Afghanistan. They have not reached their goals in defeating the Afghan mujahedeen."

US and Afghan commanders insist the national security forces can hold the line against the Taliban despite concerns of a repeat of Iraq, where an American-trained army virtually collapsed in the face of a jihadist onslaught.

"Our sons and daughters of ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] are in the lead, fighting to protect security interests. God willing, they will prevail," national security adviser, Mohmmad Hanif Atmar, said at the ceremony.

Since 2001, billions of dollars of aid have been spent in Afghanistan on new schools, hospitals, roads and promoting women's rights, but corruption has been endemic and progress limited even in the cities.

This year's presidential election, which was meant to be the keystone legacy of the development effort, was marred by fraud and a prolonged stand-off between the two poll rivals that fanned further unrest.

Ashraf Ghani eventually emerged as the new president in a power-sharing deal with Abdullah Abdullah.

But their "unity government" has failed to appoint any new ministers three months after taking power.

Ghani hopes to bring peace to Afghanistan after decades of conflict, saying he is open to talks with any insurgent group.

Hamid Karzai, president from 2001 until 2014, opened preliminary contacts with the Taliban but they collapsed acrimoniously last year.

The US will continue to provide some air support for the Afghan military, and may extend operations if required to prevent rapid Taliban advances.

"In just a few days, our combat mission in Afghanistan will be over," US President Barack Obama said in his Christmas Day address. "Our longest war will come to a responsible end."

Recent insurgent targets in Kabul have included foreign guesthouses, diplomatic convoys and Afghan army buses.

NEW YORK — From financial crisis in Russia to cyber warfare with North Korea, 2014 has generated new flashpoints right into its final days, setting 2015 up to be just as turbulent.

Almost all of the major confrontations, such as the battle with Islamic State militants, the West's stand-off with Russia over Ukraine and the fight against Ebola, will rumble on.

Others could erupt at short notice.

"Normally after a year like this you might expect things to calm down," said John Bassett, former senior official with British signals intelligence agency GCHQ now an associate at Oxford University. "But none of these problems have been resolved and the drivers of them are not going away."

The causes are varied — a global shift of economic power from the West, new technologies, regional rivalries and anger over rising wealth gaps.

In June, a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace showed world peace declining for the seventh consecutive year since 2007, reversing a trend of improvement over decades.

The same group said in November deaths from militant attacks leapt 60 per cent to an all-time high, primarily in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria, this at a time when the West's ability to respond militarily is constrained as Washington and its European allies cut defence budgets.

Russian enigma

While Western policymakers hope Russia's economic crisis will curb Vladimir Putin's ambitions, others worry it could make him more unpredictable.

"It's not necessarily going to make Russia any better behaved," says Christopher Harmer, a former US navy pilot now senior fellow at the Institute for Study of War.

NATO officials say the alliance would treat any aggression, even covert, in NATO member Baltic states as an act of war.

China is building up its military might. It lays claim to almost all the South China Sea, believed to be rich in oil and gas. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims.

In the East China Sea, a string of islets claimed by both China and Japan have strained ties severely.

Some officials and analysts say Western overstretch means a confrontation in one part of the world can encourage potential adversaries elsewhere to try their luck, a potential factor in North Korea's increased assertiveness.

Washington has accused Pyongyang of launching a cyber attack on Sony Pictures after its film on the fictional assassination of leader Kim Jong-un. North Korea has rejected the charge.

“The recent hack on Sony has highlighted the vulnerability of the West to the growing threat posed by cyber attack,” said Alastair Newton, senior political analyst at Nomura.

Middle East maelstrom

Washington’s adversaries are becoming more adept at “ambiguous warfare”, using deniable tactics or proxy forces such as the “little green men” in unmarked uniforms and vehicles the West says Russia deployed in Ukraine.

Covert tactics may no longer be enough to satisfy Israel it can slow Iran’s nuclear programme. With a mid-year deadline for a deal, some analysts believe Israel’s government might launch a military strike to knock it back.

“If Iran agrees a deal, and that remains a big “if”, that could constitute a trigger for such an event,” said Nigel Inkster, former deputy chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and now head of transnational threats at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.

He said much would depend on whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wins March elections and how hardline a coalition results.

On one threat, most of the world’s powers are coalescing.

Pushing back Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is a high priority for western states, Gulf powers and Turkey, Russia and China.

Whether they can bridge differences on the fate of Syria’s President Bashar Assad, however, remains unclear.

Already some worry the anti-IS operation initially to safeguard minority refugees in northern Iraq is suffering “mission creep” as US elections hove into view.

More than 1,000 members of the 82nd Airborne Division will deploy to Iraq in the New Year to help train Iraqi forces.

The first months of 2015 will also be key in tackling a very different foe: Ebola.

A major US military deployment to build treatment centres in Liberia is credited with helping slow new cases there but the virus continues to spread in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

“It really is an unusually broad range of challenges,” said Kathleen Hicks, US Principal Deputy Secretary of Defence for Policy from 2012-13 and now with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

SEOUL — North Korea called US President Barack Obama a "monkey" Saturday after US cinemas released a comedy about a fictional plot to kill its leader, as it suffered another in a series of crippling Internet outages that it has blamed on Washington.

The isolated dictatorship's powerful National Defence Commission (NDC) threatened "inescapable deadly blows" over the film and accused the US of "disturbing the Internet operation" of North Korean media outlets.

An online blackout earlier last week triggered speculation that US authorities may have launched a cyber-attack in retaliation for the hacking of Sony Pictures — the studio behind madcap North Korea comedy "The Interview".

Washington has said the attack on Sony was carried out by Pyongyang.

It suffered another paralysing outage on Saturday evening which also affected telecommunication networks in the pariah state, according to Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency.

"At Pyongyang time 7:30pm (1030 GMT) North Korea's Internet and mobile 3G network came to a standstill, and had not returned to normal as of 9:30pm," Xinhua said, adding that its reporters in the North found the Internet to be "very unstable" throughout the day.

Respected cyber security firm Dyn Research said the Internet blackout was "country-wide".

"This time there wasn't the hours of routing instability that presaged the outage like last time. Although it did flicker back on for a moment, and go back down and stay down," said Doug Madory, director of Internet Analysis with Dyn Research.

"If an outside force took it down again, it did it more efficiently than the previous incident."

The NDC accused Obama of taking the lead in encouraging cinemas to screen "The Interview" on Christmas Day. Sony had initially cancelled its release after major US cinema chains said they would not show it, following threats by hackers aimed at cinema-goers.

"Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest," a spokesman for the NDC's policy department said in a statement published by the North's official KCNA news agency.

"If the US persists in American-style arrogant, high-handed and gangster-like arbitrary practices despite (North Korea's) repeated warnings, the US should bear in mind that its failed political affairs will face inescapable deadly blows," the NDC spokesman said.

He accused Washington of linking the hacking of Sony to North Korea "without clear evidence" and repeated Pyongyang's condemnation of the film, describing it as "a movie for agitating terrorism produced with high-ranking politicians of the US administration involved".

The film took in $1 million in its limited-release opening day, showing in around 300 mostly small, independent theatres. It was also released online for rental or purchase.

The film, which has been panned by critics, has become an unlikely symbol of free speech thanks to the hacker threats that nearly scuppered its release.

The low-brow comedy revolving around the fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un played to packed cinemas across the US.

A file sharing website reported the film had been illegally downloaded more than 750,000 times.

Online services for Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox gaming consoles, which had decided to release the film online, went down Thursday, apparently attacked by hackers.

Microsoft's online network for its Xbox gaming console was restored to nearly full service Friday but the PlayStation network remained down.

The NDC spokesman called again for a joint investigation into the Sony hack, which has already been rejected by the US, while accusing Washington of "beating air after being hit hard by others".

"In actuality, the US, a big country, started disturbing the Internet operation of major media of the DPRK (North Korea), not knowing shame like children playing a tag," he said.

From Monday night, websites of the North's major state media went dead for hours.

The cause of the outages in North Korea's already limited Internet access has not been confirmed. The US has refused to say whether it was involved in the shutdown.

The North has about one million computers — mainly available at educational and state institutions — but most lack any connection to the world wide web.

All online content and e-mail are strictly censored or monitored with access to the Internet strictly limited to a handful of top party cadres, propaganda officials and expatriates.

KCNA previously compared Obama to a black "monkey" in a zoo in May, prompting Washington to condemn the comments as "ugly and disrespectful".

The North Korean mouthpiece also earlier this year called South Korean President Park Geun-hye a "prostitute" in thrall to her "pimp" Obama.

KIEV — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Saturday welcomed home as heroes 145 soldiers freed by pro-Russian rebels during the largest prisoner swap of the eight-month separatist war.

The Western-backed leader donned a black bomber jacket before walking up with a grin on his face to the back cargo bay of a transport plane that landed at a military airport outside Kiev in the dawn hours.

He shook hands and tightly embraced the men — some young and others sporting greying beards — as they trundled down the steps wearing regular civilian clothes and knitted skull caps in the searing cold.

"My heart as that of a president and citizen is brimming with joy that you — as I had promised — will be able to meet the New Year with your families and comrades in arms," Poroshenko said as the released men huddled around him on the tarmac.

Ukraine's badly underfunded army has been castigated by the public for failing to stamp out a revolt that has claimed 4,700 lives and threatens to redraw the former Soviet republic's borders.

Poroshenko appeared to be addressing that rebuke by praising the men for "not breaking or changing and firmly keeping your military morale, demonstrating the best qualities of an Ukrainian warrior".

Ukraine's allies in Europe hope that Friday's exchange will mark a watershed in a war that seems at a stalemate but still rages on because of the immense mistrust between the two sides.

Kiev on Friday freed 222 insurgent fighters captured near the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk and its surrounding regions.

Another four Ukrainian soldiers were handed over on Saturday by insurgents fighting in the neighbouring breakaway province of Lugansk.

"We will search for and find everyone and not leave anyone behind," Poroshenko promised.

"The country will fight for each one of its faithful sons."

Cheap Russian coal 

The Minsk negotiations were called to reinforce a largely ignored peace plan struck in September that aimed to both stem the bloodshed and ease the crisis in East-West relations the conflict has sparked.

The eastern revolt began only weeks after Russia's March seizure of Crimea and appeared to have been staged in reprisal for the February ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed president.

Russia had initially denied parachuting in its troops to capture the Black Sea peninsula. But President Vladimir Putin later awarded medals to soldiers involved in the Crimean campaign.

And the Kremlin's rejection of charges that it was now doing the same in Ukraine's separatist east has convinced few Western nations.

Russia — its economy already under severe pressure from the plunge in the value of its oil exports — is also suffering from increasing heavy US and EU financial penalties as a result.

The Kremlin fired back at the West by publishing a revised military doctrine on Friday that decries the "reinforcement of NATO's offensive capacities on Russia's borders".

But Ukraine went on the offensive as well by cutting all rail and bus links to Crimea — a decision made citing security concerns that effectively severed the peninsula of 2.3 million from the mainland.

The respected editor of Kiev's Ukrainska Pravda news site reported that Poroshenko — whose crisis-hit country is reeling from rolling power outages — was putting additional pressure on Crimea to win urgent energy concessions from Russia.

And the Kremlin surprised many on Saturday by announcing plans to start providing Ukraine with up to one million tonnes of coal and an undisclosed amount of electricity at discounted rates every month.

"Considering the critical situation with [Ukranian] energy supplies, Putin decided to start these shipments despite the lack of prepayments," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS new agency.

European mediators now hope to use the swap to propel peace talks in Minsk that the rebels said on Saturday appeared to be going nowhere.

A final round of negotiations in Belarus on Friday which was meant to have been crowned by the signing of a comprehensive truce deal has been indefinitely postponed.

The two sides have been trying to save the peace process by holding periodic Skype video conference calls and submitting their proposals for a joint final statement to the European mediating team.

But separatist leaders reported little progress since Friday's negotiations delay.

"For the moment, there is no clarity about the next Minsk meeting," Lugansk rebel negotiator Vladislav Deynego told AFP.

BERKELEY, United States — Officials scrambled to head off renewed anger Wednesday after an armed black teenager was shot dead by a white officer in a St Louis suburb, insisting the use of force was justified.

The killing took place late Tuesday at a gas station in Berkeley, near Ferguson, Missouri — ground zero of a new protest movement over police killing of black suspects — and triggered immediate protests.

Nationwide protests were sparked after unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot dead by a white officer in Ferguson, a mainly African American town with a mostly white police force.

After several weeks, demonstrations gained momentum in reaction to several other killings of black suspects by police, including that of Eric Garner, who died in a chokehold in New York last July.

Separate grand juries is St Louis and New York failed to indict officers in either the Brown and Garner cases, sparking allegations the justice system is weighted against black victims of police abuse.

But officials in Ferguson's neighbouring suburb Berkeley said Tuesday's shooting should not be compared to the previous cases, and said the officer was acting in self-defence.

"You couldn't even compare this with Ferguson or the Garner case in New York," Berkeley Mayor Theodore Hoskins said.

"Everybody don't die the same. Some people die because the policeman initiated it, some people die because they initiated it, and at this point, our review indicates that the police did not initiate this."

He told reporters most city officials and police officers in Berkeley — a town of 9,000 which is 85 per cent black — are African American.

"Our police officers are more sensitive and it's because of the black and white relationship, it's because they interact, so you get a better understanding, that's why I believe we are different than the city of Ferguson."

He said both St Louis County and local Berkeley police were conducting independent investigations of the incident, which was captured on surveillance video.

Clashes with police 

St Louis county police chief Jon Belmar said an 18-year-old suspect levelled a gun at an officer responding to a theft complaint, leaving him with no alternative but to shoot.

Belmar said two men approached the officer's car as it arrived at the gas station. One suspect pointed his nine-millimetre pistol at the officer, who drew his own weapon and fired three shots.

"The individual produced a pistol with his arms straight out pointing at the officer across the hood of the police car at that point the policed officer produced his service weapon and fired," he said.

Police are hunting for the second man who fled the scene.

Officials named the suspect as 18-year-old Antonio Martin, who police said was known to police for assault and robbery charges.

St Louis police said the officer — a 34-year-old white man with six years experience on the force — was not wearing his body camera. The camera on the dashboard of his patrol car was also not on.

Missouri's State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal lamented the killing of another African American, and said the officer should have been wearing a camera.

"The definition of deadly force in the state of Missouri has yet failed this community again," she told CNN.

But she also criticised the dead teeenager.

"A young man had an illegal gun and pointed it at a police officer and that is certainly not acceptable," she said.

There are three body and dashboard cameras in Berkeley's police force, which is expected to receive more in the coming months, according to the mayor.

A 300-strong crowd gathered after the shooting, with demonstrators lobbing bricks and three explosive devices, which officials said were likely fireworks. Police responded with pepper spray.

A small group was seen looting a shop close to the scene of the shooting. At least one officer was injured and is in hospital after the clashes.

'Imminent danger' 

Belmar said "bad choices" were made by the suspect, and defended the officer's actions.

"This individual could have complied with the officer, he could have run away, he could have dropped the gun... it didn't have to end with him approaching the officer with an arm extended and a nine-millimeter pistol in his hand," he said.

Martin's mother Toni Martin disputed the police account.

"His girlfriend told me that the police was messing with them," Martin said on CNN.

"When he was trying to get up and run, they started shooting him. They won't tell me nothing. They won't even let me see my baby."

The recent shootings have inflamed resentment against police tactics in the United States and distrust many blacks feel toward law enforcement.

SHAMUKJULI, India — Hundreds of survivors of a brutal rebel attack that killed at least 63 people in northeastern India sought shelter Wednesday in a church and school while security forces imposed a curfew in a bid to contain the latest bout of ethnic violence.

Long-simmering land and ethnic disputes in Assam state erupted in bloodshed Tuesday when authorities said rebels belonging to a faction of an indigenous separatist group called the National Democratic Front of Bodoland attacked tribal settlers known as Adivasi. Most of the Adivasis, whose ancestors migrated to Assam more than 100 years ago, have worked on tea plantations.

At least 100 people, mostly women and children, sought refuge in a church in Shamukjuli village in Sonitpur district, where 26 of the victims died. Another 200 people ran to a nearby school. The Adivasis are a mix of Hindus and Christians and many had been preparing for Christmas when the attack took place, survivors said.

Bodo rebels have been fighting for a separate homeland for their indigenous tribe, which makes up 10 per cent of Assam's 33 million people. They have staged attacks against both Adivasi and Muslim settlers in violence that has left at least 10,000 people dead, most of them civilians, in the last three decades. In May, the same rebels group shot and killed more than 30 Muslims.

Many of the dead in Tuesday's attacks included women and children, police said. The rebels may have been provoked by heavy losses they suffered recently as police intensified operations against the group, Singh said.

"We are trying to ensure that ethnic violence does not flare up," he said, adding that a curfew was imposed in two districts and police and paramilitary forces patrolled the area.

There were concerns the violence could spill over.

Following the attacks, angry Adivasis surrounded a police station in Sonitpur and attempted to attack the officers inside, said S.N. Singh, a top police official. Police opened fire, killing three Adivasis, he said.

He also said there were incidents of Bodo homes being attacked, but troops managed to control the situation.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the latest attacks, and the home ministry rushed several thousand federal paramilitary troops to the region, junior Home Minister Kiren Rijiju said.

Dozens of rebel groups have been fighting the government and sometimes each other for years in seven states in northeast India. They demand greater regional autonomy or independent homelands for the indigenous groups they represent.

The rebels accuse the federal government of exploiting the region's rich mineral resources but neglecting the local people.