Forest war over

FEDERAL Environment Minister Tony Burke has declared an end to Tasmania's forestry wars, after key environmental groups signed up to an amended agreement with the state's logging industry.

Tasmania's Lower House is expected to sit late tonight to debate the forestry peace deal legislation, which is designed to end decades of bitter wrangling.

Environmentalists and the timber industry were forced to recommit to the agreement after the state's Upper House made amendments that delayed the protection of more than half the forests originally earmarked.

With agreement reached between signatories including The Wilderness Society, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Environment Tasmania, and the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, Mr Burke said the state's forestry war was now over.

Passing of the legislation will unlock tens of millions of dollars in federal and state assistance, aimed at helping Tasmanian struggling forestry industry restructure.

"Instead of an industry that was going through a significant decline ... as of tomorrow we get a story where conservation and forestry jobs get to move forward hand in hand," Mr Burke told reporters in Hobart this afternoon.

"In terms of wars, yes (it's over). You might get the odd skirmish from small minor groups. But what we have seen from the last 30 years ends tonight, and that is something to celebrate."

Despite her Tasmanian Greens colleagues and environmental groups backing the forestry agreement, Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne labelled the deal "dead" because of the Upper House amendments.

"Now there is a salvage strategy at best, a picking over the bones of the dead body," Senator Milne said.

"It died in the Upper House when the Legislative Council in Tasmania took a chainsaw to this agreement and destroyed its integrity."

Explosion shakes central Prague

An explosion in central Prague on Monday, probably caused by gas, injured as many as 40 people, officials said, and neighboring buildings - including the National Theatre - had to be evacuated.

The explosion, in a building facing the Vltava river just a few dozen meters (yards) from the 19th-century theatre, was heard as far away as Prague Castle about a mile away.

A police spokesman said the blast was probably caused by gas and that there had been about 15 people in the building, which included an office of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and an art gallery.

"We estimate up to 40 people were injured," Zdenek Schwarz, the chief of Prague paramedics, said on Czech Television.

"These are mostly light injuries, cuts, bruises, injuries from glass. We estimate no more than four seriously injured, but this is preliminary information," he said.

An emergency services spokeswoman said some people may have been trapped in the building, which belongs to the Czech Air Navigation Services company.

A Reuters witness at the site saw about a dozen people being treated by emergency services.

"I was sitting quietly in my flat, making coffee. Then there was an incredible explosion. I thought the building would collapse. I looked out the window, and there was only dust everywhere," Venceslava Sehnotkova, a pensioner living in a nearby house, told Reuters television.

The blast blew out some of the windows in neighboring buildings, including Prague's landmark Cafe Slavia. The building where blast occurred also includes the Prague FAMU film school and the social sciences faculty of the Charles University.

A fire department spokeswoman said there were no reports of fatalities.

Several streets around the site were cordoned off by police.

On Sunday, part of a five-storey residential building collapsed - possibly because of a gas explosion - in the northeastern French city of Reims, killing three people and injuring 14, officials said.