Every parliament has a five-year term in Italy, but early elections have often been called over the past decades because of political crisis.

Prodi said he was working to give Italy "a government with prestige and strength" to be able "to turn the corner" on its problems, which include an economic slump.

Outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who begrudgingly conceded defeat in Italy's April 9-10 election, also predicted the center-left would govern for a full five-year term and even longer, according to La Repubblica which carried his comments on Sunday.

Prodi, who is at the helm of a disparate coalition that includes two mainstream center-left parties and a varied group of smaller formations, ranging from communists to moderate Catholics,won an ultra-slim victory in the general election.

His victory was confirmed on Saturday by the Supreme Court after a review of disputed ballots.

Berlusconi initially refused to recognize the victory of Prodi's coalition and has not yet telephoned Prodi to extend his congratulation. But he tacitly acknowledged defeat on Friday, promising to head a vigorous opposition.

Opposition conservative Fidesz emerged with only 165 seats, while smaller conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), with which Fidesz failed to form an alliance, won 11.

There is also an independent candidate who appears to have secured a seat in the parliament.

MSZP chairman Istvan Hiller has officially declared victory, the first re-election for a political party in the East European country after 1989.

"With our victory comes the responsibility to make sure the whole of Hungary wins," incumbent Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany told a crowd of supporters.

Gyurcsany said priorities of his new government would be to give citizens peace and security in their everyday lives, while improving Hungary's economic competitiveness.

The new government faces a tough challenge posed by a huge budget deficit and mounting pressure from the European Union to make economic reforms to pave the way for the country to adopt the euro.

Preliminary results showed the turnout was around 63 percent, 5 percent lower than in the first round on April 9.

Fidesz leader Viktor Orban Orban called Gyurcsany to congratulate the Socialists on their win.

Trying to remain upbeat in a speech to his supporters, Orban said his party still had as many seats as they had held in the previous parliament, despite MSZP gains.

He also admitted that the party's failure to forge an alliance with the MDF was a key factor resulting in the defeat.

"Those who can unite, win, but those who cannot will always lose," he said.

SZDSZ leader Gabor Kuncze said the election results not only meant a continuation of the coalition government but a "more comfortable" lead over the opposition than the 10-seat margin in the last four years.

MDF leader Ibolya David refused to accept blame for the conservative defeat, adding there was a "difference in principles"between the two parties.

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, President of the Party of European Socialists (PES), praised the win secured by Hungary's Socialist-led coalition.

"The Hungarian people have voted for the Social Democratic pathway to renewal and modernization with a well-deserved vote of confidence for Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany," said Rasmussen.

A new, modern European left-wing is evolving in the Central European countries, he added.

After the Italian and Hungarian elections, the Social Democratic parties have formed governing coalitions in 13 European Union countries, the PES president said.

The killings took place at three locations but the massacre took its name from just one, the Katyn Forest in modern-day Belarus. The murders killed many of Poland's intelligentsia; among the dead were officers, chaplains, writers, professors, journalists, engineers, lawyers, aristocrats and teachers. All were killed by a single shot to the back of the head.

Some 15,000 bodies have been found and the rest are thought to be still buried in secret mass graves.

The murders have soured Moscow's relations with Poland for six decades, with Warsaw accusing the Kremlin of deceit, a lack of remorse and brutal indifference. It was only in 1989 that the then Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, admitted that the killings had been perpetrated by Stalin's secret police. Before that the USSR blamed the atrocities on the Nazis who occupied the area during the war, even going to the trouble of reburying bodies and bulldozing evidence in an elaborate attempt to deflect blame.

Seventy families related to the murdered soldiers are to lodge a case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the next few weeks. Some want surviving suspects to be prosecuted, while others simply want the killings to be classed as genocide and for Russia to be forced to disclose everything it knows about the atrocity.

"We are not interested in revenge or even in punishing anyone," said one Katyn survivor, Mgr Zdzislaw Peszkowski, aged 85. "We only want the full truth to be universally known. This is not just a Polish issue. Revealing all the circumstances of this atrocity is needed to finally close the chapter known as the Second World War."

Lawyers for the families believe that Russia flouted the European Convention on Human Rights by never properly investigating the atrocities. Russia's "investigation" lasted for more than a decade on and off and was definitively closed in September 2004. Poland's Institute of National Remembrance has said that Russia's position on Katyn was a "humiliation of the memory of the Polish victims and an offence to the feelings of their living family members".

Central Scotland officers also said they were searching a property today in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire - around seven miles from Alva.

Police said the arrests were part of a continuing "major" inquiry under the Terrorism Act 2000.

A statement said: "The men, aged 40 and 25, were arrested at an address in Alva, Clackmannanshire, earlier today.

"Their arrest follows that of a 20-year-old man in Alva, Clackmannanshire, on Thursday April 13.

"In addition, an address in Bridge of Allan is being searched in connection with the inquiry."

The statement added: "This is a major ongoing inquiry. However, there remains nothing to suggest a direct threat to communities, the threat levels to the UK remain unchanged and an extensive reassurance strategy is in operation."

Amy McEwan, 22, who works at The Coffee Pot cafe in Bridge of Allan, said the police operation in the town centred on an address in Union Street.

She said the house was occupied by an Asian family.

A caretaker at the Allan Community Centre said he saw a police presence in Union Street at 10am today, which included two people in white forensic suits.

He said: "There were flashing lights outside a property.

"I saw two people in white forensic-style suits getting into a car."

A yellow-painted house in Union Street was at the centre of the police operation.

By mid-morning, two uniformed police officers were standing guard outside and police tapes cordoned off the area.

Nearby was a parked police van, with white-clad investigators visible inside it.

BBC Scotland reporter Duncan Kirkhope, who witnessed part of the Bridge of Allan operation, described seeing "a sea of police and vehicles".

He told the BBC Scotland news website he was driving through the town's main street with his son just before 9.30am when he saw police blocking off Union Street.

He said: "I looked down the street and all I could see was a sea of police and vehicles - mainly uniformed officers and marked police cars.

"By the time we got parked and walked round, a number of the marked vehicles drove away and then we saw people being driven away from the semi-detached house in unmarked police cars.

"One unmarked car had three Asian people in the back, possibly two women and a young person, or a woman and two young people."

He said the other car had one Asian male, possibly in his 50s, in the back seat.

"We have treated around 15 injured who have all been beaten except for one injured from rubber bullets," said doctor Saroj Ojha running a clinic's mobile medical team.

The US embassy told the families and non-essential staff to leave because of concerns over dwindling supplies, shortages in medical expertise, protests and sometimes "violent measures" used by the regime to break them up.

In a statement it warned other American citizens "should also depart Nepal as soon as possible".

Leaders from a seven-party alliance will address a rally at seven points on the 27-kilometre (17-mile) ring road around the capital as senior opposition leaders vowed to take the protest to the royal palace.

"The democratic republic has reached up to the king's ring road and now it moves to the royal palace," protest leader Bamdev Gautam said at a rally on the northern outskirts of the city late Sunday.

But another senior member of his Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) said the "peaceful" protest would not head into the city, where soldiers were defending one of the king's palaces.

The parties said they planned 1,000 marches, mass meetings and effigy burnings Monday as a curtain raiser to the main protest throughout the Kathmandu Valley, the area encompassing the capital and home to 1.7 million people, according to reports.

King Gyanendra, in a bid to thwart new protests, set a new curfew in central Kathmandu from 11:00 am (0515 GMT) until 6:00 pm, state television said, warning anyone who violated the order could be shot on sight.

A United Nations human rights expert on Monday urged the government to halt the policy saying it could be a crime against humanity.

"The government is, in effect, instructing its forces to shoot innocent people, in complete disregard for the right to life," said Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, in Geneva.

Kathmandu was suffering shortages of fuel, food and other essential goods as piles of festering rubbish littered the streets.

Large sections of the ring road were covered with burnt tyres and roadblocks from nearly three weeks of daily protests as the king has struggled to quell the escalating calls for his removal.

Maoist rebels, meanwhile, launched simultaneous attacks with guns and grenades late Sunday on a telecoms tower and a police station at Chautara, 120 kilometres (75 miles) northeast of Kathmandu, that left five Maoists and a soldier dead, the army said.

"Five bodies of Maoists were recovered from the clash site Monday morning and one of our men also died," said an official from army headquarters on condition of anonymity.

King Gyanendra seized power in February 2005 because he said the government was corrupt and had failed to tackle the bloody Maoist insurgency, which has left more than 12,500 dead over the last decade.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, meanwhile, called Sunday for a rapid restoration of the multi-party system in Nepal to end the unrest gripping the kingdom, which he said has deeply troubled India.

Singh told reporters on a trip to Germany that King Gyanendra's decision to outlaw democratic political parties had led to the crisis, and added that the Indian government had urged the monarch in "several conversations" to back down.

At least 14 people have died and hundreds have been injured in the clashes between pro-democracy activists and the security forces during an upsurge of civil unrest that began on April 6.

Both planes were at an altitude between 500 and 800 feet when they collided above the Palmer Hay Flats in a remote area about 10 miles south of Wasilla.

"It appears that the westbound aircraft apparently saw the other aircraft at the last moment, tried to avoid the collision, but unfortunately that didn't work," said Johnson, though he did not identify which plane that was.

Don Grant, who lives near the crash site, said he looked up to see the planes hit each other, then plummet.

"I only recall hearing one sound when they hit the ground, so I'm pretty sure they hit at the same time," he said.

Rescuers found the planes about 500 feet from each other. Getting to the crash required using all-terrain vehicles, said fire chief Jack Krill.

Names of the victims were being withheld until authorities could notify families.

Johnson said arrangements were being made to retrieve the wreckage and continue an investigation into what caused the crash.