Italy ex-PM Berlusconi to do community service - court

Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi must do one year's community service over tax fraud, a Milan court has ruled.

He was convicted of tax fraud last year in connection with TV rights purchased by his firm Mediaset in the 1990s.

The alternative to community service had been house arrest. It is not yet clear what form his community service will take.

The 77-year-old billionaire has been embroiled in a string of court cases.
He was spared prison in the Mediaset case because the Italian legal system is lenient to the over-70s.
Italian media reports say he is likely to work one half-day a week at a home for elderly and disabled people near his estate outside Milan.

He will be subject to a curfew and banned from meeting people with criminal convictions - a measure which applies to at least one of his associates, AFP news agency reports.
Court battles
Berlusconi has always denied the charges, accusing left-wing judges of a witch-hunt aimed at neutralising him as a political leader.

He is still leader of Forza Italia, the main conservative opposition bloc, but he is barred from standing in next month's European elections.

Last year he was convicted of paying for sex with an underage prostitute and abusing his powers, which brought him a lifetime ban from public office. He was expelled from the Italian Senate.
He is appealing against the underage sex conviction, in a trial known as the "Ruby" case.
He is also on trial for allegedly bribing a centre-left senator to switch sides.

Oscar Pistorius 'heartbroken' at seeing Steenkamp body

South African Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has told his murder trial he was "heartbroken" when he saw the body of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

"I crouched down over her... and I checked to see if she was breathing or if she had a pulse," he said.
The prosecution has now finished five days of gruelling cross-examination, which has seen the athlete break down on several occasions.
Mr Pistorius denies murder, saying he mistook his girlfriend for an intruder.
The prosecution says he deliberately shot dead Ms Steenkamp after the couple had had an argument and has suggested he is staging his emotional outbursts.
He faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder.

Malaysia MH370: After aborted underwater search, crews hope to try again

The first deployment of an underwater vehicle to hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was aborted early, sending the drone back to the surface before expected.

The Bluefin-21 vehicle was supposed to take 2 hours to get to its designated depth Monday, spend 16 hours searching, and 2 hours coming back up.

Instead, it spent about 7 and 1/2 hours in the water, including descent and ascent times, a source said.

Search officials analyzed data from Bluefin-21, and found no objects of interest, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday.

Crews will try to send the probe back into the Indian Ocean later Tuesday, weather permitting.

So what went awry the first time?

"In this case, the vehicle's programmed to fly 30 meters over the floor of the ocean to get a good mapping of what's beneath and to the sides, and the chart we have for the area showed that water depth to be between the 4,200 and 4,400-meter depth," said Capt. Mark Matthews, who heads the U.S. presence in the search effort.

But the water was deeper than expected -- about 4,500 meters.

"Once it hit that max depth, it said this is deeper than I'm programmed to be, so it aborted the mission," Matthews said.

David Kelly, CEO of the company that makes the Bluefin-21, said the device's safety mechanisms have triggered such recalls in the past.

"Although it's disappointing the mission ended early, it's not uncommon," Kelly said. "We've operated these vehicles around the globe. It's not unusual to get into areas where the charts aren't accurate or you lack information."

Mathews said the initial launch Monday night took place "in the very far corner of the area it's searching, so they are just shifting the search box a little bit away from that deep water and proceeding with the search."

It is unclear how much of the area -- 5 kilometers by 8 kilometers (3.1 miles by 4.9 miles) -- the Bluefin scanned during its first attempt. It could take up to two months to scan the entire search area.

If ever found, just which country will take custody of the plane's data recorders? Malaysia's Acting Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Tuesday it wasn't as important as "finding out the truth."

Also Tuesday, the Malaysian Cabinet agreed to set up an international investigation. It will be comprised of teams that will look into the airworthiness of the plane, the operational aspect, and the medical and human factors that may have played a part.

The co-pilot's cell phone

While search crews probe the ocean floor, a new detail emerged from the flight.

The cell phone of the first officer of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was on and made contact with a cell tower in Malaysia about the time the plane disappeared from radar, a U.S. official told CNN on Monday.

However, the U.S. official -- who cited information shared by Malaysian investigators -- said there was no evidence the first officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid, had tried to make a call.The official told CNN's Pamela Brown on Monday that a cell-phone tower in Penang, Malaysia -- about 250 miles from where the flight's transponder last sent a signal -- detected the first officer's phone searching for service roughly 30 minutes after authorities believe the plane made a sharp turn westward.

The details do appear to reaffirm suggestions based on radar and satellite data that the plane was off course and was probably flying low enough to obtain a signal from a cell tower, the U.S. official said.

U.S. officials familiar with the investigation told CNN they have been told that no other cell phones were picked up by the Penang tower.

Pilots are supposed to turn off their cell phones before pushing back from the gate.

When the plane first went missing, authorities said millions of cell phone records were searched, looking for evidence that calls had been made from the plane after it took off, but the search turned up nothing.

The suspected oil slick

Another possible clue into the plane's disappearance emerged Monday.

Australian officials announced the Australian ship Ocean Shield had detected an oil slick Sunday evening. It is unclear where the oil came from; a 2-liter sample has been collected for examination, and was on its way Tuesday to western Australia for analysis. Testing could be days away.

CNN Aviation Analyst Les Abend, who flies a Boeing 777, said the engines on the plane have about 20 quarts of oil each.

"It could be slowly dripping up to the surface," he told CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360." "They're saying an oil slick. I'm wondering if it's just some sort of a fluid slick. It could be (from) hydraulics."

If it is oil, it's not the first oil slick detected as part of the search. A similar find in the first days of the search was determined to be fuel oil from a freighter.

Surface search nearing end

"The air and surface search for floating material will be completed in the next two to three days in the area where the aircraft most likely entered the water," Houston said.

That search was energized last week when searchers using the Navy-owned pinger locator and sonobuoys detected sounds that could have been from the plane's black boxes, or data and voice recorders.

But after a week of silence, the batteries powering the locator beacons are probably dead, an official from the company that makes the beacons told CNN on Sunday. They were certified to last 30 days, a deadline that's already passed.

That means searchers may not be able to detect any more pings to help lead them to those pieces of the missing plane.

Pro-Russian gunmen seize more buildings in east Ukraine

SLAVYANSK, Ukraine - Kalashnikov-wielding gunmen on Saturday seized a police station and a security building in Ukraine's restive eastern industrial heartland amid spreading protests to press for the heavily Russified region to join Kremlin rule.

The coordinated attacks and a subsequent raid by a few hundred pro-Russian protesters on the police headquarters of the local capital Donetsk underscored the volatility of the crisis ahead of peace talks between EU and US diplomats and their Moscow and Kiev counterparts in Geneva on Thursday.

Ukraine's interim leaders have been facing unceasing pressure from Russia since their February ouster of an unpopular Kremlin-backed president and decision to seek closer ties with the West.
Moscow has massed tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine's eastern border after annexing its Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and nearly doubled the rates it charges Kiev for gas.

Russia is now ready to demand prepayment from the cash-strapped government for future gas deliveries or halt supplies - a cutoff that would impact at least 18 EU countries and add further urgency to the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War.

But the seizures more immediately highlight how little sway Kiev's untested leaders have over pro-Russians who have since April 6 controlled the Donetsk government seat and a state security building in the nearby eastern city of Lugansk.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk visited the region on Friday in a failed bid to pacify protesters with a vague promise of more sweeping local rights.

'Armed terrorists'
The morning police station raid and a subsequent attack of the regional security service centre happened in Slavyansk - a riverside town of 100,000 about 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of the regional capital Donetsk.

Ukraine's interior ministry said the first assault was led by 20 "armed men in camouflage fatigues" whose main purpose was to seize 20 machine guns and 400 Makarov guns stored in the police headquarters "and to distribute them to protesters".
"Our response will be very severe," Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook page.
"There is zero tolerance for armed terrorists." An AFP reporter saw the Slavyansk police station being surrounded by armed men in masks and camouflage who had set up a barricade of old tyres and dumpsters in front of the police headquarters.

The gunmen aggressively shoved aside Western reporters and only allowed Russian-speaking media anywhere near the building.
"The entire city... will defend the guys who seized this building," Slavyansk Mayor Neli Shlepa told Russia's Life News television outside the police headquarters.
The interior ministry said some of the same gunmen had later occupied the city's state security service building.
"The protest participants are continuing to arm themselves with weapons seized from the police," the interior ministry said in a statement.

Singaporean man torches himself in front of clinic

JOHOR BARU - A Singaporean man torched himself in front of a clinic along Jalan Harimau in Taman Century here.

The 42-year-old man had, prior to the 9am incident yesterday, bought four litres of petrol for RM8 (S$3) from a petrol station just two metres away from the clinic.

Johor Baru South OCPD Supt Sulaiman Salleh said the victim told the pump attendant that his car was out of petrol and it was parked near the clinic.

"After filling up a plastic container with petrol, he walked to the clinic at Jalan Harimau and torched himself there and ran to a nearby hotel before falling into a drain," he said.

Supt Sulaiman said the police did not know why the victim torched himself and urged witnesses to come forward.

He said the victim, who suffered serious burns, was in critical condition and still unconscious at the Hospital Sultanah Aminah here.

MH370: We didn't know he made a call, says pilot's brother

KUALA LUMPUR - Brother to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 the first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid said he did not know about the phone call made by his sibling when it flew over Penang the night it disappeared.

Afiq Abdul Hamid, 20, said the last time he spoke to his brother was a week before the incident, adding that he did not know who Fariq could have been trying to contact and added that none of his family members were told of it by the authorities.

Afiq said the the revelation came as a surprise to him and his family.
The chemical engineering student at Universiti Teknologi Petronas said he understood the police were still carrying out investigations and could not reveal anything just yet as it might jeopardise investigations.
On Friday, the NST traced the source of a call made on board MH370 to Fariq's phone.
It was learnt that investigators had been poring over this discovery as they try to piece together what had happened moments before the Boeing 777-22ER twinjet went off the radar, some 200 nautical miles (320km) northwest of Penang, on March 8.

Sources say the aircraft with 239 people on board was flying at an altitude low enough for the nearest telecommunications tower to pick up Fariq's phone signal.
His call, however, ended abruptly, but not before contact was established with a telecommunications sub-station in the state.

However, the NST was unable to determine who Fariq was trying to call as sources chose not to divulge details of the investigation. The links that police were trying to establish were also unclear.
"The telco's (telecommunications company's) tower established the call that he was trying to make. On why the call was cut off, it was likely because the aircraft was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one," the sources had said.

It was also established that Fariq's last communication through the WhatsApp Messenger application was about 11.30pm on March 7, just before he boarded the aircraft for his six-hour flight to Beijing.
The NST was also told that checks on Fariq's phone history showed that the last person he spoke to was "one of his regular contacts (a number that frequently appears on his outgoing phone logs)".
This call was made no more than two hours before the flight took off at 12.41am from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

A different set of sources close to the investigations told the NST that checks on Fariq's phone showed that connection to the phone had been "detached" before the plane took off.
"This is usually the result of the phone being switched off. At one point, however, when the airplane was airborne, between waypoint Igari and the spot near Penang (just before it went missing from radar), the line was 'reattached'."
In Sintok, police were investigating the company involved in the cleaning of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370's cabin before it departed from KLIA to Beijing, China, on March 8.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said police were looking into all angles, including loopholes, during the cleaning.
"We are looking at every possibility and investigation is on-going," he said yesterday.
On Friday, Khalid had said police were also investigating a catering company in charge of the preparation of food on board MH370 to ascertain if the dishes had been poisoned.
Khalid was reported as saying that police had to re-look at certain points in the probe to shed more light into the tragedy.

Samsung Galaxy S5 makes global debut

SEOUL - The latest version of Samsung's flagship Galaxy smartphone went on sale worldwide Friday, days after the electronics giant announced it was facing a second consecutive quarter of profit decline.

The Galaxy S5 has a lot riding on it to steer the South Korean firm's profit-making machine back on track as growth in smartphone sales slows, with mature markets like North America and Europe near saturation.
Reviews of the S5 have mostly concluded that it is one of the best high-end smartphones on the market, but there is also a general consensus that it lacks the "wow" factor needed to differentiate it from its predecessors and competitors.
"It can swim, but it won't make any waves," was the verdict of the Wall Street Journal, referring to one innovation in the S5's waterproof covering.
"The Galaxy S5 is a good phone. It earns an unreserved recommendation," said the Washington Post.
"But the truth of the matter is that there's really nothing here that's worth breaking your contract to buy," it added.
Samsung's mobile unit has been the driving force behind the record profits of recent years, and it needs the S5 to perform well as a retort to doom-mongers who say the company lacks a clear strategy to flourish in an increasingly competitive, saturated market.

Samsung made more than 30 per cent of all smartphones sold in the world last year, nearly twice the share of its arch-rival Apple.
But on Tuesday, the company estimated its first quarter operating profit at 8.4 trillion won (S$9.94 billion), marking a second straight year-on-year decline.

As well as the constant challenge from Apple, Samsung has had to face the rapid expansion of smaller rivals like China's Huawei, which has pressured it into rolling out cheaper handsets to woo consumers in emerging markets, especially China.

MH370 hunt goes on after Australia signals great confidence

PERTH, Australia - Ships and planes pursued Saturday the search for the missing Malaysian airliner off Australia after Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was "very confident" that signals from the black box had been detected.

The Australian-led search for the Boeing 777, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, is racing to gather as many signals as possible to determine an exact resting place before a submersible is sent down to find wreckage.

The Joint Agency coordination Centre (JACC) said Saturday that the remote search area where the plane was believed to have gone down some was still shrinking.
"Today, Australian defence vessel Ocean Shield continues more focused sweeps with the towed pinger locator to try and locate further signals related to the aircraft's black boxes," JACC said.
Ocean Shield has picked up four signals linked to aircraft black boxes, with the first two analysed as being consistent with those from aircraft flight recorders.

The beacons on the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders have a normal battery lifespan of around 30 days. MH370 vanished March 8.

AP-3C Orion surveillance aircraft were also carrying out acoustic searches in conjunction with Ocean Shield, the statement said adding that the British oceanographic ship HMS Echo was also working in the area.

Saturday's total search zone covers 41,393 square kilometres (15,982 square miles) and the core of the search zone lies 2,330 kilometres (1,450 miles) northwest of Perth.
"This work continues in an effort to narrow the underwater search area for when the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is deployed," JACC said adding that there have been no confirmed signal detections over the past 24 hours.