"We need to support them (the Central Asian states).... Don't forget where Uzbekistan is located -- it borders
Afghanistan," he said.

He said outsiders showed they did not understand central Asia when they used "stamps and cliches" to complain about the region, particularly about Uzbekistan, which has been widely criticised for human rights abuses.

Having only gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian states should not be compared with countries that have had longer to mature, Putin said.

The Russian president met with journalists for two hours in his hotel suite in the early hours of Friday, sipping cranberry juice and cracking the occasional joke.

He rejected claims that the Shanghai group -- which focuses on security issues and economic cooperation -- was emerging as a rival military bloc to the Western-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

"It's not a military bloc, it's open to all," he said.

"There's a feeling of alarm that Russia and China are combining forces. But this organisation is open. There's nothing covered up," Putin said.

The Shanghai group had been a "good instrument" after the fall of the Soviet Union for settling border demarcation questions that had remained unresolved for decades, he said.

"It was a good instrument for solving them and became a good way for solving other problems. It was a natural process," Putin said.

In addition to China and Russia, the SCO also comprises Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Putin also reiterated his optimism that a recent set of Western proposals to Iran aimed at resolving the standoff over Tehran's nuclear programme would ease tensions.

"It's a real move forward thanks to the six countries who sought a solution and thanks to Iran which didn't reject the proposals," Putin said of the deal put forward by Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Putin, who met with Iranian counterpart President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday, also said that Moscow hopes to create a joint venture with Tehran on exploiting natural gas reserves in the two countries.

"We're talking about getting a Russian deposit and an Iranian deposit and creating a joint venture. It is only an idea for now, not worked out at a technical level," he said.

"We will not allow incidents like this to scuttle the peace process," the president told survivors and relatives of bus massacre victims on Thursday, an official in his office said.

The government blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the carnage, but the guerrillas denied involvement.

"We will not allow this type of barbaric terrorist attack to happen again," the president said. "We must resolve the conflict peacefully. No one can resolve problems through this type of violence."

Police officials said patrols as well as road blocks were intensified across the city and other key towns as part of a security alert amid fears of more Tamil rebel attacks.

"There is a fear that the Tigers will try to do something to disrupt normal civilian life," a police spokesman said. "We have put in place several new measures to increase security."

At first light Friday jets resumed retaliatory attacks against suspected Tiger positions.

"The air force carried out two bombing sorties over Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu," a military source here said, referring to two northern areas held by the Tigers.

"The identified targets of the LTTE are being taken this morning," he said.

The military said there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The pro-rebel Tamilnet website said an aerial attack in the district of Mullaitivu on Thursday was near a tsunami refugee camp, but that there were no casualties.

"At least six bombs were dropped near the refugee camp," Tamilnet said. "Two of the bombs did not explode."

It said people had "escaped injuries from the indiscriminate bombing from a high altitude by supersonic jets."

International condemnation of the massacre mounted.

"This attack is much more than a ceasefire violation. It is a grave breach of the most fundamental tenets of humanity," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said.

"The government must urgently investigate this case so that those responsible not only face justice, but the full censure of the international community," she said.

The blast and retaliatory strikes fuelled fears the island's faltering peace process was doomed and that the nation was heading back to full-scale war.

The United States urged the Tigers to "renounce terror and enter into direct negotiations with the Sri Lankan government."

Former colonial ruler Britain condemned the attack and urged all sides to refrain from further "senseless" violence.

The island's main peace broker, Norway's International Development Minister Erik Solheim, described the attack as "horrific" and asked both sides to end the spiral of violence and stop killing civilians.

"The most important now is for everyone in Sri Lanka to put a stop to this violence, where one act of violence creates a response from others and then it goes from one case of violence to another, worse and worse," Solheim said.

Australia, India, Japan and Switzerland also condemned the carnage while nudging the parties to negotiate.

Norway last week failed to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Colombo and the LTTE in Oslo. The spike in violence has left at least 760 people dead since December.

Energy from waste biomass (rotting refuse from which methane is captured) will see a rate increase of around 50 percent to 14 cents of a euro (17.64 US cents) per kilowatt-hour (kWh), junior industry minister Francois Loos said here.

Payment for geothermal (drawing on heat from the Earth's crust) will rise from 7.6 to 12 euro cents (9.5 to 15.2 US cents) per kWh and from 7.9 to 15 euro cents (9.95 to 18.9 US cents) per kWh, depending on whether the energy is used for electricity or electricity and heating combined.

Loos added that a new tarif had been created for wind generated by offshore turbines, of 13 euro cents (16.4 US cents) per kWh.

The existing rate structure for land-based wind turbines is being reviewed, in order to give incentives to operators who invest in high-efficiency equipment and place generators in areas where winds are average, as the windiest sites in France are already being harvested, he said.

France's goal is to drive renewables' share of electricity generation from 14 percent as of today to 21 percent as of 2010.

Around three-quarters of the country's electricity comes from EDF's nuclear plants, under a vast programme launched in the 1970s after the first oil shock.

Among the projects being launched in the renewables sectors, two stand out for their size or ambition.

One is the France's first offshore windfarm, a facility seven kilometres (four miles) from the small Channel resort of Veulettes-sur-Mer, which is scheduled to start operations in 2008.

It will have a designed capacity of 300 million kWh per year, enough for a town of 150,000 people.

The other is a new-generation geothermal scheme at Soultz-sous-Forets, in the Bas-Rhin department in eastern France.

In Brussels, meanwhile, the European Parliament voted on Thursday to dedicate two-thirds of the European Union's non-nuclear energy research to renewable energy and efficiency, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) said in a press release.

The decision amounts to a major shift away from research into fossil fuels, it said.

If approved by EU ministers, non-nuclear energy research will total 2.4 billion euros (3.024 billion dollars) from 2007-2013. Two-thirds of this for renewables and energy efficency would equal about 226 million euros (284.75 million dollars) per annum, said EWEA.