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The death toll rises to 30, as rescue efforts continue after two explosions in a coal mine in western Siberia.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Senior Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are due to resume talks on forming a government.

On Sunday negotiating teams spent six hours in "very positive and productive" talks and the party leaders had a 45-minute face-to-face discussion.

The Tories said they and the Lib Dems were "discussing specific proposals" and both sides said economic stability would be key to any agreement.

It emerged Mr Clegg had also met Gordon Brown to discuss a potential deal.

Mr Brown has offered the Lib Dems talks if no agreement is reached with the Conservatives.

The prime minister and Mr Clegg met at the Foreign Office, after Mr Brown arrived back at Downing Street on Sunday afternoon from his home in Scotland.

A Downing Street spokesman told the BBC it had been an "amicable discussion".

Mr Cameron was aware of the meeting.

The Conservative negotiating team consists of Shadow foreign secretary William Hague, shadow chancellor George Osborne, policy chief Oliver Letwin and chief of staff Ed Llewellyn.

Their Lib Dem counterparts are MPs Chris Huhne – Lib Dem home affairs spokesman – Andrew Stunell, David Laws and chief of staff Danny Alexander.

They will resume talks on Monday, and Conservative MPs are due to meet later in the day.

The Tories won the most votes and MPs in Thursday’s election, but are short of a majority and are seeking support from the Lib Dems to form a government.

Gordon Brown remains prime minister, and government business continues, with Chancellor Alistair Darling attending a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels.

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said of the Tory-Lib Dem negotiations: "They are not merely going through the motions. There are real and substantial talks."

He said it was "make your mind up time for Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems", adding that they "have to do it pretty soon".

On Sunday, emerging from the Cabinet Office after a day of talks, Mr Hague said: "The issues that we have covered have included political reform, economic issues and reduction of the deficit, banking reform, civil liberties, environmental issues."

He added that both sides "agreed that a central part of any agreement that we make will be economic stability and the reduction of the budget deficit".

Minutes later, Mr Alexander also made a brief statement, describing the talks as wide-ranging and "good", and also emphasising that deficit reduction was important.

Speaking on Sunday before the talks Nick Clegg said: "I’m very keen the Liberal Democrats should play a constructive role at a time of great economic uncertainty to provide a good government that this country deserves.

"Throughout that we will continue to be guided by the big changes we want."

The Lib Dem leader has said the Conservatives, as the biggest party, have the right to seek to form a government first.

They have met the Tory team three times, assisted by civil servants as agreed in the arrangements for a hung parliament.

Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg first met for face-to-face talks over a possible coalition on Saturday and discussed it again by phone a day later.

Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown said it was important that the party talked to the Conservatives at the same time as "listening to Labour".

"The central proposition is: what combination serves the nation’s interests in providing stable, long-term stability in order to tackle the crisis?" he said.

Also on Sunday Mr Brown met Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, advisor Alastair Campbell, energy secretary Ed Miliband and deputy leader Harriet Harman in Downing Street.

And in an e-mail to Labour activists the prime minister thanked them for their work throughout the election."The past few days have seen us enter a political landscape not considered possible a few short weeks ago – with the outcome of the election leading to no single party able to form a majority government," he wrote.

"My duty as prime minister has been to seek to resolve this situation."

Several Labour backbenchers have called for Mr Brown to step down.

BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said: "Privately the assessment of senior labour sources is that the Liberal Democrats are most likely to reach a deal with the Conservatives which falls short of a formal coalition and which would allow David Cameron to govern without a majority.

"However they are encouraged that some very senior Liberal Democrats are highly sceptical about reaching any accommodation with the Conservatives and feel the space has opened up for the possibility of an alternative deal with Labour."

Scotland’s First Minister, SNP leader Alex Salmond, has called on the Lib Dems to join a "progressive alliance" involving Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru.

The Tories secured 306 of the 649 constituencies contested on 6 May. It leaves the party short of the 326 MPs needed for an outright majority.

The Thirsk and Malton seat – where the election was postponed after the death of a candidate – is still to vote.

Labour finished with 258 MPs, down 91, the Lib Dems 57, down five, and other parties 28.

If Labour and the Lib Dems joined forces, they would still not be the largest grouping. With the support of the Northern Irish SDLP, one Alliance MP, and nationalists from Scotland and Wales they would reach 330, rising to 338 if the DUP, the independent unionist and the new Green MP joined them.

What’s your reaction to a possible coalition? Send us your comments.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

EU finance ministers have agreed on emergency measures worth 500bn euros (£430bn) to prevent the Greek debt crisis from affecting other countries.

The 16 members of the single currency bloc will have access to 440bn euros of loan guarantees and 60bn euros of emergency European Commission funding.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will also contribute up to 220bn euros.

Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said the agreement "proves we shall defend the euro whatever it takes".

There had been fears that without the measures, the euro might have come under heavy pressure on financial markets as investors grew concerned about financially-troubled states such as Portugal.

The euro has strengthened in early trading in the Far East, surging above $1.29.

Marathon talks

Speaking early on Monday following 11 hours of talks, Spain’s Finance Minister Elena Salgado announced that an agreement had been reached on a package to defend the euro and eurozone economies.

Under the aid plan, the European Commission would make 60bn euros available while members of the eurozone would promise bilateral backing for 440bn euros of loans and guarantees, she said.

The IMF would contribute an additional sum of at least half of the EU’s contribution, or 220bn euros, Ms Salgado added.

Mr Rehn said the European Central Bank (ECB) would also take exceptional market intervention measures, thought to be the purchase of eurozone government bonds.

"The fiscal efforts of the EU member states, the financial assistance by the commission and by the member states, [and] actions taken today by the ECB proves we shall defend the euro whatever it takes."

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

US President Barack Obama will nominate Solicitor-General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, US media reports say.

The White House has not yet commented, but Mr Obama is scheduled to announce his choice at 1000 (1400 GMT).

If confirmed, she would be the youngest member and the third woman on the court as well as the first justice in nearly four decades not to have been a judge.

The 50-year-old former dean of Harvard Law School has spent much of her professional life in academia.

Early in her career she was a clerk for a US Court of Appeals judge and later for former Justice Thurgood Marshall. And like Mr Obama, she worked on the prestigious Harvard Law Review as a student.

The president was forced to choose a nominee due to the retirement of one of the Supreme Court’s leading liberals, John Paul Stevens.

Non-ideological writings

The BBC’s Richard Lister in Washington says that as solicitor-general, Ms Kagan is already well known and she went through a fairly smooth confirmation process in the Senate for her current job this year.

There had been speculation for some time that she was Mr Obama’s preferred choice and her appointment would maintain the current political balance of the Supreme Court, he says.

Although regarded as a liberal on most issues, she has worked with conservatives and has even attracted a liberal backlash against her support for continuing Bush administration policies on state secrets and the use of military commissions to try terrorism suspects, our correspondent adds.

Her staunch advocacy of gay rights may concern Republicans, who have also expressed concerns about her lack of judicial experience. She would also be questioned as to whether she was qualified.

Ms Kagan’s academic writings are largely non-ideological, and she would have no paper trail of judicial opinions available for scrutiny.

With 59 votes, Senate Democrats would have enough to confirm her, but they would be one short of being able to halt blocking or stalling tactics by any Republican senators. When she was confirmed as solicitor-general, only seven Republicans backed her.

Our correspondent says that selection of a Supreme Court justice gives a president the opportunity to influence US public life for decades, as the justices are not bound by term limits.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Four people have been killed as polls opened in local and national elections in the Philippines, after three months of intense campaigning.

Voters will elect a new president and vice-president, as well as more than 17,000 other positions.

Benigno Aquino, the son of the popular former president, Cory Aquino, has been leading the polls but former president Joseph Estrada is also in the running.

Dozens of people were killed during an intense three-month campaign.

The security forces are patrolling to try to prevent more bloodshed.

Determined to vote

A military spokesman said three people were shot dead and 10 others wounded when police clashed with supporters of a mayoral candidate in the southern province of Zamboanga Sibugay before dawn.

A cousin of the vice governor in North Cotabato province was shot dead while riding on a motorbike in a separate incident, local police said.

The latest deaths bring the toll over four months leading into the elections to 33 dead.

Those deaths are in addition to the 57 people killed in Maguindanao province in November when a group was trying to register candidacies for these elections in an area held by the rival Ampatuan clan.

Twelve members of the Amapatuan clan have been charged with involvement in the mass killing, but 10 of them are running for posts in these polls, as they remain innocent until proven guilty in court.

The BBC’s Philippines correspondent Kate McGeown is at the Nemesio Yabut elementary school in the capital, Manila, and says long lines have formed where hundreds of people who are waiting for a chance to vote.

She says some people have already been waiting for hours in the sticky heat but everyone still seems to be in high spirits.

Embarrassing

People take elections seriously in the Philippines – an estimated 85% of those eligible are expected to vote.

Glitches have already occurred with the country’s new automated voting system.

Even the election front-runner, Mr Aquino, had trouble voting at his home province of Tarlac because the ballot-counting machine had broken down.

"Hopefully, this is just an isolated incident. We are waiting for more reports… (but) if people can’t vote because the machines don’t accept their ballots, then certainly that is a problem," Mr Aquino said.

Throughout the campaign the issue that has also been dominating the headlines is the automated voting machines that will be used for the first time in this election.

Our correspondent says there are fears of what might happen if something goes wrong with the machines.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A former minister in the government of India’s southern Karnataka state has been arrested after the wife of a friend accused him of sexual assault.

Haratal Halappa, former food and civil supplies minister in the state’s BJP government, denies the charge. He says he is being framed by political rivals.

Mr Halappa resigned last week. He surrendered to the police on Sunday.

Correspondents say the incident has embarrassed the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government.

Mr Halappa had claimed some of his own party leaders are among those who want to frame him.

He said last week that he had resigned to save the government from embarrassment and vowed to clear his reputation if there was a "proper inquiry".

The woman, who lodged a complaint against the minister, said the incident took place last November. She said she and her husband were threatened by the minister and told to keep the incident secret.

"He tried to have sex with me by force. I resisted …When my husband returned home, he saw me crying. He could not control his anger and beat him. I beat him up too," she said.

She said she was "scared" for her life if the government did not give her protection.

Mr Halappa will be produced in a court in Bangalore city on Monday.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

As the family of 16-year-old murder victim Jimmy Mizen prepare to mark the second anniversary of their son’s death with a service at Westminster Cathedral, the BBC’s Dhruti Shah spoke to his father Barry about how they have coped.

Barry and Margaret Mizen refuse to let their grief for Jimmy tear their family apart – because they say doing that means allowing anger to take over, making them no different to Jimmy’s murderer.

Their son was one of 72 young people killed in the UK in 2008 and since then, his parents have watched others succumb to the same fate.

The couple will be joined by the families of other victims, includingandDamilola Taylor, at a peace service at Westminster Cathedral on Monday.

They will use the service to warn that apathy will not solve the problem of youth violence and to call for peace in Britain’s communities.

"Anger and confrontation are destroying our communities when most people just want a peaceful life. The first way to tackle this is for people to begin to take responsibility," Mr Mizen said.

"Most of the people who will be at the ceremony won’t have met each other before, but will have come together for this common cause.

"We will have a song that Jimmy’s brother Tommy wrote in his memory, prayers, speeches and a minute’s silence – not just for our son but for all victims of violence.

A Clarence House spokeswoman said Prince Charles would also be attending as he was keen to show his support for families who had lost young people to violent crime.

Mr Mizen said he still found it hard to believe his son was gone. He does not want his death to be in vain.

The 58-year-old said before Jimmy’s death, his family had never thought they would be affected by the violence they had read about in media reports, but now it permeated their daily lives.

‘Not crying’

"We have met so many other families since whose children have been murdered and we try to help them as much as we can.

"You think it happens to someone else but that’s not true. People won’t take tougher action until we accept that it affects all of us."

The couple have also foundedFamilies United along with 11 other families who have lost a loved one in a similar violent manner.

The organisation acts as a collective voice for the various activities the families are doing to keep their childrens’ legacies alive. Many will be at the service.

"We are certainly not sitting around crying – we’re talking about the good memories and how to fundraise and raise awareness," Mr Mizen said.

The group successfully lobbied social networking group Facebook to stop prisoners using the site.

Complacency

The family have also set up theJimmy Mizen Foundation.The charity has set up safe havens in their local area for teenagers fleeing violence, and has bought minibuses for the local community.

"We often visit prisons where we speak to people about our experiences and they listen respectfully – often asking questions.

"Some of them are killers who are at first angry with the person they murdered but then come to realise they carried out the killing, nobody else," Mr Mizen said.

Jimmy was killed by Jake Fahri – a bully who had clashed with the family before.

Mr Mizen said it was important to tackle the underlying causes that led people like Fahri to kill. And although the number of young people (aged 10-19) killed violently in the UK fell from 72 in 2008 to 51 last year, Mr Mizen said more had to be done.

He said he was concerned about the 11 teenage murders that have taken place in London since the beginning of 2010.

He said: "We are firefighting this – we need to work more on preventing those fires in the first place. In 2008, when my son died, those deaths came on quickly.

"There was a sense that something had to be done now. The police were more forceful and more work was done by other agencies. The crime figures showed this.

"The problem now is complacency and that is dangerous."

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The Prince of Wales will be among the guests at a service for victims of violent crime organised by the family of murdered teenager Jimmy Mizen.

The Building A Legacy of Peace event at Westminster Cathedral marks the second anniversary of the 16-year-old’s death in a London bakery.

It comes after a week which saw two teenagers murdered in the capital.

The Jimmy Mizen Foundation charity, set up after his death, said the event was a national call for peace.

Jimmy bled to death the day after his birthday when Jake Fahri, 19, threw a glass tray at him in the Three Cooks bakery in south east London, severing an artery in his neck.

Fahri, from Lee, where his victim also lived, was given a life sentence for the murder in 2009.

Since the killing Jimmy’s parents Margaret and Barry Mizen have tirelessly campaigned against violent crime.

They created the Jimmy Mizen Foundation which funded two "Jimmybuses" for local scout groups.

The service is the second commemorative event arranged by the family.

Among the invited guests are families of other victims, including 10-year-old stabbing victim Damilola Taylor and young actor Robert Knox, killed outside a bar in south-east London.

Representatives from the police, social services and education departments will also be attending.

Decreasing murders

In a statement, Jimmy’s family said: "A more peaceful life is what most of us desire, there is far too much anger and confrontation and the usual response is to say ‘they’ must do something, as if it was that easy a problem to solve.

"There is no ‘they’, it is ‘we’ and there is not one single solution but many varied things that need to happen, and an acceptance that we will work for peace is a good beginning."

Recent BBC research found a 30% decrease in the number of teenagers murdered across the UK.

In 2008, 72 people aged between 10 and 19 were murdered, while 51 died in 2009.

This year, 11 teenagers have been murdered in the capital – eight of those have died in the last six weeks.

Last Wednesday, Nicholas Pearton, 16, died in his mother’s arms after being stabbed and beaten as he tried to flee from up to 10 attackers in Sydenham, south London.

Another teenager, a 19-year-old man, was stabbed to death near Finsbury Park Tube station in north London on Saturday night.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A piece of Sir Isaac Newton’s apple tree is set to defy gravity, the theory it inspired, by being carried into space on the next Nasa shuttle mission.

The wood sample is from the original tree from which an apple fell, leading Newton to devise his theory of gravity.

The sample, which is normally held in the Royal Society’s archives, was lent to British-born astronaut Dr Piers Sellers, who will take it into orbit.

The Atlantis shuttle will lift off for on 14 May carrying six crew members.

The 12-day mission will be the Nasa shuttle’s last.

The move is part of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary celebrations.

The tree sample will be accompanied on its trip into space by an image of Sir Isaac, which was also donated by the Royal Society.

Dr Sellers, who was selected as an astronaut candidate by Nasa in 1996, said he and the other team members were "delighted" to be taking a piece of the historic tree into orbit.

"While it’s up there, it will be experiencing no gravity, so if it had an apple on it, the apple wouldn’t fall," he said.

Dr Sellers went on to quip: "I’m pretty sure that Sir Isaac would have loved to see this, assuming he wasn’t spacesick, as it would have proved his first law of motion to be correct."

Sir Isaac, a physicist and mathematician, is widely regarded as being one of the greatest scientists of his era.

‘Pleased and proud’

He recounted the story that inspired his theory of gravitation to scholar William Stukeley and it later appeared in Stukeley’s 1752 biography, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life.

In the story, Sir Isaac claimed to have been inspired by a falling apple in his garden to investigate the theory of gravitation.

After the space flight, the tree sample and picture will be returned to the Royal Society.

Lord Rees, the academic institution’s current president, said it was "both pleased and proud that such an extraordinary part of scientific history and important element of the Royal Society’s archive collection can make this historic trip into space".

He said the piece of tree and picture of Sir Isaac will go on to form part of the History of the Royal Society exhibition that the society will be holding later this year and will then be held as a permanent exhibit.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Students from 20 leading universities are to protest against what they say are “underhand” tactics over tuition fees.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.