Muscat sworn in as Malta's new PM

MALTESE Labour leader Joseph Muscat has been sworn in as prime minister after his party swept to power for the first time in 15 years in the eurozone's smallest member state.

The 39-year-old Muscat, an ex-journalist and former member of the European Parliament, scored a landslide win against the incumbent Nationalist Party of Lawrence Gonzi in elections on Saturday.

"We want to work with the opposition and all those who do not agree with us but who are willing to work with us. Yesterday, this government received a historic mandate," Muscat said after being sworn in on Monday.

Labour won 54.83 per cent against 43.34 per cent for the Nationalist Party. The rest of the vote went to the Green Party and independent candidates.

The Labour Party will have a majority of between seven and nine seats in the 65-seat parliament.

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S Africa state TV reels as directors quit

SOUTH Africa's troubled public broadcaster has revealed the chairman of the board and his deputy have resigned amid allegations of political interference.

Ben Ngubane was appointed chairman by President Jacob Zuma in 2009, and his deputy Thami ka Plaatjie joined in June 2012.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation reported the resignations came as Communication Minister Dina Pule "appealed for the board to resolve its internal disagreements".

No further reasons were given for their departure.

Zuma's office said in a statement he had received the resignation notices and was considering them.

Ngubane has been criticised for allowing the state broadcaster to become a mouthpiece for the ruling African National Congress and for Zuma.

"They blatantly abused the SABC's platforms," to support Zuma's re-election at an ANC conference last year, the opposition Democratic Alliance alleged, urging Zuma to accept the resignations.

Ngubane and Plaatjie join a long list of SABC board members who have left the broadcaster or were fired before the end of their term.

The giant broadcaster is also under fire for a range of maladministration problems, including excessive pay for its top brass.

In 2011, Ngubane told parliament the loss-making corporation was almost insolvent and on the brink collapse.

The broadcaster employs 3600 people and broadcasts in the country's 11 official languages.

Its management exodus comes after mass resignations last year at another state-owned entity, South African Airways (SAA), the national carrier.

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Latvia enjoys strongest growth in EU

LATVIA'S economy grew 5.6 per cent last year - the best performance among the 27-country European Union - thanks to robust trade and manufacturing.

The national statistics agency said on Monday that growth accelerated from 5.4 per cent in 2011.

In the fourth quarter of 2012, gross domestic product increased 5.1 per cent.

Though Latvia is enjoying fast growth, it remains one of the poorest of the bloc's 27 members.

After several years of rapid expansion, the country's economy entered a deep recession in 2008 and had to be bailed out by international lenders such as the EU and the International Monetary Fund.

The Baltic state's centre-right government hopes to phase in the euro in 2014, which would make it the 18th member in the currency union.

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N Korea accused of crimes against humanity

A UN human rights monitor has accused North Korea of committing a string of crimes against humanity, laying out a litany of abuses before the world body's top rights forum.

Marzuki Darusman told the UN Human Rights Council he had identified nine areas of key concern, including depriving the population of food, torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, the use of prison camps and the secretive regime's denial of freedom of expression.

"I believe that many, if not all, of the nine patterns of violation, identified in my present report, may amount to crimes against humanity, committed as part of systematic and or widespread attacks against civilian population," Darusman, who hails from Indonesia, told the Council on Monday as he presented a report on the situation in North Korea.

He pressed his demands for an international commission of inquiry into the human rights record of North Korea, which repeatedly has refused to co-operate with Darusman and other United Nations investigators.

Japan and the European Union are set to lodge a resolution at the Council creating such a commission.

Last month, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay decried the "deplorable" situation in North Korea, saying a commission of inquiry was "long overdue".

But North Korea rejected the criticism on Monday, with its delegate Kim Ju-song claiming Darusman was in league with "hostile forces", citing Japan, the EU and the United States.

"We make it clear again. The human rights violations identified in this report do not exist," Kim said.

North Korea won support at the Council from China, whose delegate said creating a commission of inquiry could "escalate tensions".

Iran, Cuba and Venezuela also criticised the plan, calling for dialogue, not naming and shaming, and accusing the West of double standards.

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Cuba lost best friend: Castro on Chavez

FORMER president Fidel Castro has eulogised Venezuela's Hugo Chavez as "the best friend Cuba ever had", in his first remarks since the death of his protege and his country's long-time benefactor.

Writing in the daily Granma newspaper, Castro eulogised Chavez, who died last week, as "an unforgettable friend" who "did not even himself realise just how great he was".

"Even though we knew the critical state of his health, the news (of Chavez's death) was a heavy blow," the revolutionary icon wrote in a brief newspaper column.

Castro, 86, added that he and Chavez "had the privilege of sharing the same ideals of social justice and help for the exploited. The poor are the same everywhere throughout the world."

Chavez passed away on March 5 after a years-long battle with cancer, after undergoing surgery and treatment almost exclusively in Cuba.

His death was a major blow to Havana, which for more than a decade has relied heavily on cheap Venezuelan oil and favourable terms of trade to keep its economy afloat.

The two countries were also close ideological partners and political allies, often finding common cause against the United States and global capitalism.

Chavez was seen as the region's leftist firebrand in the tradition of Fidel Castro, who resigned Cuba's presidency in 2008 after a health crisis.

Venezuela has announced it will hold elections in 30 days with Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's hand-picked successor and now interim president, faced off against opposition leader Henrique Capriles.

Capriles, who is also the governor of Miranda state, was defeated by Chavez in the presidential election in October last year.

Cuba was represented at Chavez's funeral in Venezuela last week by current President Raul Castro, Fidel's younger brother.

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Local militias used in Syria mass killings

THE Syrian regime appears to be using local militias known as Popular Committees to carry out sometimes sectarian mass killings in Syria, a UN inquiry team says.

"In a disturbing and dangerous trend, mass killings allegedly perpetrated by Popular Committees have at times taken on sectarian overtones," the UN commission of inquiry, led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, said in an update to its latest report on the situation in Syria, without giving concrete examples of the killings.

The groups, it said, were frequently described as Shabbiha militias and were reportedly being set up to protect their neighbourhoods against anti-government armed groups and criminal gangs.

But the groups, which according to defectors "mirror the ethnic, religious and class composition of the neighbourhoods they protect", had evolved to reinforce government forces, the report found, adding their presence had been documented across Syria.

"Recently, the regime has begun to integrate the Popular Committees along with other sympathising groups in a new paramilitary force called the National Defence Forces, institutionalising the existing militias and organising them into an operational structure," it said.

The commission, which on Monday presented the findings of its report published last month to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, said the past two months had seen a rapid deterioration of the situation in Syria.

Syrian ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoni, meanwhile, lambasted the report, which he said was full of errors and based on "testimonials of which the reliability and truthfulness we question".

The commission - set up in 2011 at the behest of the UN Human Rights Council - has previously detailed what it believes are war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Syrian government forces and their allies, and, to a lesser extent, by opposition fighters.

It is set to submit a confidential list of names of suspected perpetrators to the UN human rights office, and has repeatedly urged the deadlocked UN Security Council to refer the cases to the International Criminal Court.

Switzerland on Monday, meanwhile, presented a petition signed by 63 countries calling for the Security Council to refer the Syrian violence to the International Criminal Court.

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OECD sees signs of eurozone growth

EUROZONE economic growth is beginning to emerge, especially in Germany, leading OECD indicators show.

In France and Italy, the second and third biggest eurozone economies after Germany, the trend was not as strong however, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said on Monday.

In France, leading indicators pointed towards a "stabilisation" of business activity, whereas they had suggested in February that business activity could start to show slight growth.

Italy was also considered to be in a stabilising phase, which would be an improvement from a recent period of decline.

The OECD indicators are designed to identify turning points in the economic cycle, but they also pointed towards sustained growth in both the United States and Japan, the world's biggest and third biggest economies, respectively.

The data for number two China, for India and to a lesser extent for Brazil suggest that economic growth will continue but at a pace that is below trend, while Russia was tipped to benefit from a rebound in activity.

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