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BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- Germans and Israelis on Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots that began their campaign to destroy European Jewry, with ceremonies, concerts and vows to honor the victims with renewed vigilance.

Chancellor Angela Merkel recalled the Nov. 9, 1938 riots in which more than 91 German Jews were killed and more than 1,000 synagogues damaged, telling Germans that the lessons of the nation's past were crucial in confronting a current increase of xenophobia and racism.

The riots are seen by many as the first step leading to the Nazis' systematic murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

"We must not be silent," Merkel told the nation at a ceremony in Germany's newly renovated largest synagogue. "Anti-Semitism and racism are a threat to our basic values -- those of democracy and respect for diversity and human rights."

At Israel's weekly Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Kristallnacht, or Night of the Broken Glass, was "the turning point toward the inevitable destruction of a greater portion of the Jewish people in Europe between 1939-1945," adding that Israel "will never forgive or forget" the crimes of the Nazi regime.

Israeli President Shimon Peres issued a statement on Sunday calling the Holocaust the "worst disaster that ever happened to us."

Some 30,000 Jewish men and boys were arrested and sent to concentration camps during the pogrom that left the streets littered with shards of glass -- giving it the pogrom its name.

Germany's southern neighbor Austria -- where Kristallnacht claimed 30 Jewish lives -- also commemorated the day, while German-born Pope Benedict XVI called for prayers for Kristallnacht's victims in "profound solidarity with the Jewish world."

Benedict served briefly in the Hitler Youth corps, as a young man in Germany called Joseph Ratzinger.

At Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, survivors, their descendants, academics and the German and Austrian ambassadors to Israel took part in a ceremony that also included a rare musical rendition of a work of the German-Jewish composer Robert Kahn, whose music was outlawed by the Nazis.

Yad Vashem also presented a new online exhibit, "It Came From Within ... 70 Years Since Kristallnacht," marking the event with images, historical information, and pages of testimony about some of the Jews who died during Kristallnacht.

Charlotte Knobloch, head of Germany's Central Council of Jews, who survived Kristallnacht as a girl in Munich, Germany, told the gathering in Berlin's Rykestrasse Synagogue that Germans must fight against far-right extremism in all its forms.

"One must be sensitive to the quiet and less quiet signals of anti-democratic developments in our country," said Knobloch, who lived through Kristallnacht as a girl in Munich.

The synagogue, a red brick temple built in 1904, also survived Kristallnacht because of its location nestled in an inner courtyard of a densely populated neighborhood. It reopened last year after two years of painstaking renovation.

A memorial concert in Berlin later Sunday and events in other communities across the country were also being held to mark the anniversary.

PETIONVILLE, Haiti (CNN) -- Authorities have detained the owner of a Haitian school that collapsed, killing at least 84 students. Meanwhile, rescue workers continue to comb through the rubble in search of survivors.

Fortin Augustin, who owns College La Promesse Evangelique in Petionville, surrendered to authorities on Saturday, police spokesman Garry Desrosier told The Associated Press.

Desrosier said Augustin has not been charged. He is currently being detained at a police station near Port-au-Prince.

As many as 700 children were on the school grounds, celebrating the school's birthday when the building collapsed about 10 a.m. Friday ET, said Abel Nazaire, deputy coordinator of Risk and Disaster Management in Port-au-Prince.

By Saturday night, 150 people had been injured, but many more remained missing, Nazaire said.

Officials said it has not been easy to determine how many people were inside the building at the time of the collapse. Watch CNN reporter describe the scene »

"Yesterday (Friday), there was a special event at the school, so there were not only pupils, but family members and friends who were invited," said Rob Drouen, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross. "It's very difficult to say how many people were in the school."

Most of the students at the school ranged in age from 10 to 20, officials said, but some are younger. Haitian press reports said kindergarten, primary and secondary students attended the school.

Amelia Shaw, a journalist with United Nations TV who visited the scene, said the second floor of the building crumbled onto the first. Haitian President Rene Preval has said the structure of the three-story school building was "really weak" and called for a review of construction guidelines.

International aid crews continue to sift through the wreckage in search of survivors.

Earlier Saturday, rescue crews pulled out several children alive, prompting cheers and reviving hope among parents. Since then, there had been no signs of life. Watch how search for survivors can be painful »

Rescuers discovered the bodies of 20 children and their teacher in a classroom.

"Throughout history, there's been people found 48, 72 hours later -- still alive, in good shape," said Michael Istvan of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), one of several agencies helping with the recovery effort.

Rescue workers punched holes in the concrete and sent down cameras looking for signs of life. A crane lifted chunks of concrete, while dogs were brought in to help with the recovery effort.

Officials said one of their biggest concerns is the vibrations from the power generators. They said too much vibration can shake loose pieces of concrete on the damaged hillside structure, sending them tumbling down and causing more casualties.

aused by a malfunctioning fire safety system that spewed out chemicals, according to an initial investigation, officials said Sunday.

At least 21 other people were injured during Saturday's test run in the Sea of Japan, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

It was Russia's worst naval accident since the nuclear submarine Kursk sank after an onboard torpedo explosion on August 12, 2000, killing all 118 crew members.

The latest fatal accident was the result of the "accidental launch of the fire-extinguishing system" on the Pacific Fleet sub, Russian navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo told reporters.

Russian news agency Interfax said a preliminary forensic investigation found that the release of Freon gas following the activation of the fire extinguishing system may have caused the fatalities.

Seventeen of the fatalities were civilian members of the shipyard crew, Interfax reported. The submarine was being field tested before it became a official part of the navy, according to a Russian Defense Ministry statement.

The statement said 208 people, including 81 soldiers were on board the submarine. In addition to the fatalities, the accident wounded 21, Russian officials said.

The accident did not damage the nuclear reactor on the submarine which later traveled back to its base on Russia's Pacific coast under its own power, Dygalo added.

The submarine returned to Bolshoi Kamen, a military shipyard and a navy base near Vladivostok, state-run Rossiya television said, according to The Associated Press.

Officials did not reveal the name of the submarine, but Russian news agencies quoted officials at the Amur Shipbuilding Factory who said the submarine was built there and is called the Nerpa.

Construction of the Nerpa, an Akula II class attack submarine, started in 1991 but due to a shortage of funding was suspended for several years, the reports said. Testing on the submarine began last month and it submerged for the first time last week.

The Kremlin is seeking to restore Russia's military power amid strained ties with the West following the war with Georgia.

But despite former President Vladimir Putin increasing military spending, Russia's military remains hampered by decrepit infrastructure and aging weapons.

The Kremlin said President Dmitry Medvedev was told about the accident immediately and ordered a thorough investigation.

America has no monopoly on fast-rising political leaders. Six years ago, John Key quit a career in foreign exchange trading that had made him a millionaire to enter the New Zealand parliament.

Today, the 47-year-old is his country's prime minister-elect, following the victory of his center-right National Party over Prime Minister Helen Clark's Labour Party in New Zealand's general election on Nov. 8.

Key assumed leadership of the party following its narrow loss in the 2005 general election. He sufficiently moved it toward the center and broadened its appeal to blue-collar workers so that critics dubbed it Labour-lite. A pragmatic rather than doctrinaire conservative, Key worked for Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ) from 1995, first as its head of Asian foreign exchange in Singapore, then as head of global foreign exchange in London.

He returned to New Zealand in 2001. He campaigned on the strength of his financial background in an election dominated by economic issues. New Zealand's economy has entered a mild recession as growth slows across the Asia-Pacific region in the wake of the global financial crisis. That ended a boom that had started in 2000 and kept Clark's Labour party in office for nine years.

The economy faces a difficult year ahead, but Key's election is unlikely to see any dramatic policy shifts in either domestic or foreign policy--even though he told his supporters that the country had--what else these days?--"voted for change."

TOKYO -- A Japanese girl was held captive at home for eight years by her mother, officials revealed for the first time Thursday, acknowledging that authorities repeatedly missed the abuse despite several warning signs.

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea has released a photograph of a smiling Kim Jong Il, the latest in an apparent attempt to dispel rumors that the reclusive leader is gravely ill.

The picture, broadcast on state television Sunday, show Kim sitting inside what appears to be a VIP box, watching a soccer game. The broadcast did not say when the photo was taken, nor did it carry any video

The anchorwoman said the photo was taken at a game between two army teams. It shows Kim in dark sunglasses and a dark jacket.

The anchorwoman also said the players felt "a fire in their heart" at meeting the North Korean leader.

Kim, 66, has not been seen in public since August 14. His absence from numerous events that he would normally attend has raised questions about his health. Some unconfirmed reports said the North Korean leader underwent brain surgery after suffering a stroke over the summer.

North Korean television broadcast a series of photos in October showing Kim during a visit to a military facility.

South Korean police officers walk by displays of models of mock North Korea's Scud-B missile, left, and other South Korean missiles at Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 20, 2008. South Korea said Monday it was business as usual in North Korea, casting skepticism on media reports that Pyongyang was poised to make an announcement possibly concerning the health of its leader

SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea accepted a North Korean proposal to hold military talks, a Defense Ministry official said Saturday, amid continuing tensions on the divided peninsula.

Ties between the two countries, which are still technically at war, have soured since South Korea's pro-U.S. conservative president, Lee Myung-bak, took office in February with a pledge to get tough with North Korea.

In protest, North Korea suspended reconciliation talks and threatened to cut any remaining relations if Seoul continues a policy of "reckless confrontation."

But South Korea, which denied this past week it had taken a hard-line stance toward the North, agreed to a meeting Monday inside the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, the South Korean official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The move came a day after North Korea proposed the talks involving lieutenant colonel-grade officers to discuss military communication lines between the two Koreas.

Earlier this month, the two sides failed to make any progress in colonel-level talks _ their first official contact since Lee took office.

During that meeting, the North lodged a strong complaint over leaflets critical of its leader, Kim Jong Il, sent over the border via balloon by private activists in South Korea. North Korea threatened to expel South Koreans working at joint projects in the North if the propaganda did not stop.

The two Koreas agreed in 2004 to end decades of fierce propaganda battles which often used leaflets and messages over powerful loudspeakers near their border denouncing the other side.

Also Saturday, North Korea stepped up its hostile rhetoric against South Korea.

"If someone commits provocations against (the North), it will not miss an opportunity but resolutely respond to confrontation with confrontation and war with war and mercilessly punish the aggressors," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary from the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

The 1950-53 war between the two Koreas ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula technically still at war.