Australia to impose stronger sanctions against Zimbabwe

Sydney - Australia Monday will consider imposing stronger financial and travel sanctions against Zimbabwe as violence escalates in the lead up to the June 27 presidential run-off election.

"I've made it clear that we are open to consider more sanctions. We are currently giving active consideration to the issue," Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio.

Australia has already imposed financial sanctions and suspending non-humanitarian aid, and defence and ministerial links, besides travel bans on members of the Zimbabwe regime.

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has pulled out of the run-off election against President Robert Mugabe, saying growing violence has made a free and fair poll impossible.

"I think what it does do now is that it places maximum pressure on the South African development states and the African Union to now put considerable pressure on Mr Mugabe to try and get an outcome where the will of the Zimbabwe people is respected," Smith told ABC Radio.

South African President Thabo Mbeki is the appointed mediator for Zimbabwe.

As for Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the run-off poll virtually providing Mugabe with a legitimate election win, Smith said, "I don't think on any analysis here can we conclude anything other than a brutal regime seeking to, in the first round, steal an election by rorting (cheating) the count, and in the second round stealing it by violence. The violence now needs to be overcome by the African and international community."

Calling the situation in Zimbabwe "horrendous," Australian Greens party leader Bob Brown told reporters, "This calls for much greater world action than we've seen. There needs to be urgent action in the United Nations to bring Mugabe to book."

Brown also called for banning Mugabe from attending international conferences and be treated in the same manner as the military junta in Myanmar.

"Quite frankly, the thuggery of Mugabe and his cronies is leading to the deaths of a lot of people. We need to put very heavy pressure on South Africa and other southern African nations to get Mugabe to go. We also need to use the Commonwealth processes that we do have to get rid of Mugabe," a South Africa-born, Liberal Party backbencher Dennis Jensen, told reporters. (dpa)

McCain, Obama move into fall election campaign

WASHINGTON - The Democratic presidential nomination his, Barack Obama reached out Wednesday to mend fences with his defeated rival as Republican opponent John McCain tried to frame the fall campaign on his own terms. "I think he has exercised very bad judgment on national security issues and others," McCain said.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was angling to become Obama's running mate and her aides ramped up the speculation on that matter Wednesday. "I think a lot of her supporters would like to see her on the ticket," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said. But Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs cautioned "there is no deal in the works."

Clinton has yet to acknowledge Obama's victory in the bruising Democratic race and her aides — also dodging that conclusion — said on the morning talk shows that she would take a few days to decide what comes next for her. Obama spoke by phone with her Tuesday night and both sides predicted he and Clinton would sit down together before long.

"When the dust settles and it makes sense for her, he'll meet whenever she wants to," Gibbs said. "She's accumulated a lot of votes throughout this country. We want to make sure that we're appealing to her voters."

On the final night of the primary season, Clinton won South Dakota on Tuesday while Obama took Montana — and a slew of party superdelegates who declared their support to help him clinch the nomination. He did it, according to The Associated Press tally, based on primary elections, state Democratic caucuses and support from superdelegates. It took 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination at the convention in Denver this summer, and Obama had 2,154 by the AP count.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a dogged Clinton supporter, recognized the brutality of the arithmetic.

"I am the last of the Mohicans, but it is over," he said.

But after all of Obama's struggles to win over white blue-collar workers and older voters who flocked to Clinton, Rendell said he remained "a little wary" about the Illinois senator's prospects.

"Senator Obama is an exciting candidate, he's smart as a whip, he's got the backbone," he said on CNN, "but he's got some work to do, no question about it."

Obama and Clinton were both back in Washington on Wednesday to address the national conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who ran twice for the Democratic nomination in the 1980s and made what was then historic progress for a black candidate, praised Obama's achievement in a phone interview from Serengeti National Park in northeastern Tanzania, where he is attending a meeting.

"Obama's nomination reflects phenomenal growth in America," he told The Associated Press. "The dream of a promised land is being fulfilled."

He said Clinton "should accept the defeat graciously" and the two longtime rivals should strive for a quick reconciliation so that the party is united in the fall.

Four Democratic leaders, also eager for unity, said in a joint statement Wednesday that "the voters have spoken" and the remaining uncommitted superdelegates should declare their support for a candidate by Friday. They were Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic chairman Howard Dean and West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, head of the Democratic Governors Association.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale, a superdelegate who had been a Clinton support and the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee, endorsed Obama on Wednesday.

The primaries behind them, Obama and McCain were drawing the battle line for a fall fight that will make history with the election of either the oldest first-term president in McCain or the first black commander in chief in Obama. In speeches marking the start of the general election, both maneuvered for the advantage with voters sour on the status quo. Both were competing beyond their party's base, too.

"The key to winning the election is independent voters and Democrats as well," McCain said in an interview shown Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America." Even so, he said "I don't think so" when asked on CBS whether he'd pick a Democrat as his running mate.

In St. Paul, Minn., Obama, 46, ceded no ground on the reformer mantle and cast McCain as a continuation of the unpopular President Bush's eight-year tenure.

"My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign," he said Tuesday. "Because while John McCain can legitimately tout moments of independence from his party in the past, such independence has not been the hallmark of his presidential campaign."

The campaign is the first in half a century in which neither a sitting president nor a vice president is running for the highest office, and the first since 1960 in which a senator will assume the White House. A fragile economy and an ongoing Iraq war, as well as matters of age and race, serve as a backdrop.

Sikh aid group in Malaysia bring food to 2,400 Nargis-hit people

United Sikhs Myanmar Disaster Relief, an aid group based in Malaysia, has been distributing rations to the victims of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar through 70 local volunteers.

United Sikhs' project coordinator Harbinder Singh, and operations director Sunil Singh were in Myanmar for six days touring affected areas in the districts of Myaungmya and Labutta.

Star Online also quoted that foreigners are not allowed into the delta area.

A large shipment of dry foodstuff and water has been sent to Yangon to be distributed to displaced people in the Irrawaddy delta with the co-operation of local non-government organisations in Myanmar.

Malaysians donated the items following the United Sikhs' appeal of one bag of rice per family.

The United Sikhs organisation also set up a community kitchen and distributed prepared pulao (a cooked meal of rice, vegetables and lentils) daily to around 2,400 persons. (ANI)

Israel to build hundreds of homes in East Jerusalem

Israel has approved the construction of almost 900 new homes in East Jerusalem, a move that could hinder international efforts to secure a peace deal by year's end.

Israel is under pressure to dismantle East Jerusalem outposts like this one in Maaleh Hazeitim, seen in April.

The Palestinians hope to make East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state.

A spokesman for Israeli Housing Minister Zeev Boim said his office will issue a tender this week for the construction of 884 houses, 121 of them in Har Homa. The rest will be in Pisgat Zeev.

Both are neighborhoods annexed by Israel in 1967. The housing ministry said it timed the issuance of the permits to coincide with the 41st anniversary of the annexation.

Israel and the Palestinians are in peace talks that include the future of Jewish settlements and East Jerusalem.

In March, Israel announced plans to build 600 homes in East Jerusalem as part of the Jerusalem mayor's initiative to construct 40,000 homes in the city to ease the housing plight of young couples.

At the time, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- who was in the region to shore up support for the peace initiative -- said Israel should stop all settlement activity.

Largely at the request of the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert froze construction in both Har Homa and Pisgat Zeev, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

The newspaper said Israel issued a tender last year for the construction of 300 housing units in Har Homa, sparking harsh international criticism.

As a result, Olmert said he will need to approve all future construction plans personally, the paper said.

Suicide bomber kills at least 10 west of Baghdad

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber blew himself up at a police checkpoint west of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 10 people including the local police chief, an official said.

Fearing more attacks, authorities imposed a vehicle ban and closed all entrances to the targeted town of Hit.

The attacker detonated his explosives belt after approaching the checkpoint, which was near a bridge, at about 9 p.m., said the town's administrator, Hikmat Jubeir.

Jubeir said six policemen were among those killed, including the town's police chief Col. Khalil Ibrahim. Four civilians also were killed and 12 other people were wounded, he said.

Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad, is in Anbar province, which was the center of the Sunni-led insurgency before local tribal leaders joined forces with the U.S. military against al-Qaida in Iraq, a key factor in a steep drop in violence nationwide.

The town itself was among a series of communities along the Euphrates River used by al-Qaida and other insurgent groups to smuggle weapons, ammunition and fighters from Syria southeast toward Baghdad.

The bombing was a grim reminder of the dangers that continue to face Iraqis despite the recent security gains.

It raised the number of Iraqis killed in May to at least 532, the lowest monthly death toll this year, according to an Associated Press tally compiled from Iraqi police and military reports.

In political developments, loyalists of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stepped up their opposition to a long-term security deal being negotiated between the Iraqi government and the United States.

Senior Sadrists, including lawmakers Falah Hassan Shanshal and Maha Adel al-Douri, met in the cleric's Sadr City office in Baghdad and called on the Iraqi government to stop the negotiations and to hold a public referendum on the issue.

Al-Sadr, the hardline Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army militia battled U.S.-Iraqi troops in Baghdad's Sadr City district until a truce this month, also has called for a referendum along with weekly protests against the deal.

Widespread opposition among the Sadrists and other Shiite and Sunni groups has raised doubts that negotiators can meet a July target to finalize a pact to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after the current U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Although U.S. officials insist they are not seeking permanent bases, suspicion runs deep among many Iraqis that the Americans want to keep at least some troops in the country for many years.

Tensions also rose when Nassar al-Rubaie, the leader of the Sadrist bloc in parliament, was stopped at a police checkpoint outside Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad.

The six-car convoy, en route from Basra to the holy city of Najaf, was held up for nearly two hours without explanation, al-Rubaie told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. He called for the government to stop harassing Sadrists and put those responsible on trial.

Police Col. Asaad Ali, the director of the Diwaniyah operations center, said police stopped the convoy because gunmen are not allowed in the city and al-Rubaie was protected by armed guards. He said a patrol was sent to safely escort the convoy on its way out of the province.

Despite the truce, the U.S. military has continued to target what it calls Iranian-backed Shiite militia factions, warning key leaders have fled to other areas as American and Iraqi forces closed in on them in Sadr City.

American troops acting on tips in eastern Baghdad on Saturday captured a suspect believed to be a key assistant to one of the fugitive militia leaders, according to a military statement. The man captured was accused of kidnapping and managing funds for the so-called special groups.

The U.S. military also said an American Marine died Friday in a non-combat related incident in Iraq, pushing the number of Americans killed this month to 21 as May draws to a close.

While the number is not final, it would be the lowest monthly death toll since February 2004, when 20 troops died, according to an Associated Press tally based on military figures.

Separately, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner expressed renewed commitment to helping the Iraqis rebuild as he made his second visit to the war-torn country in less than a year.

Honduras: 4 dead, 65 injured as plane misses runway

EGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — A passenger plane overshot a runway and raced onto a busy street in the Honduran capital Friday, killing the pilot, two passengers and a motorist on the ground. At least 65 people were injured.

The Grupo Taca Airbus A320 with 140 people on board was flying a Los Angeles-San Salvador-Tegucigalpa route and was scheduled to head on to Miami, Florida. It ended with its nosed smashed against a roadside embankment and its fuselage buckled and broken in places.

Honduran authorities frantically hosed down cars trapped beneath the wreckage as thousands of gallons of fuel gushed from the jet.

Rescuers pried open part of the wreckage to get the pilot and co-pilot out, but the pilot didn't survive, said Cesar Villalta, director of Honduras' military hospital.

Passenger Harry Brautigam, a Nicaraguan who headed a regional development bank, died of heart failure. The body of a man trapped under the wreckage was believed to be a taxi driver.

Janneth Shantall, the wife of Brazilian Ambassador Brian Michael Fraser Neele, was also killed in the crash. The former head of Honduras' armed forces, Gen. Daniel Lopez Carballo, was also among the injured.

A statement from the office of President Manuel Zelaya said the flight originated in Los Angeles and that 65 people were injured in crash. TACA spokeswoman Sofia Valverde said the flight was scheduled to continue on to Miami.

Following the crash, officials acknowledged that the runways of Tegucigalpa's aging Toncontin International Airport are short and its approach paths are dangerous. The airport is ringed by hills, posing a special challenge for pilots.

There was no official cause given for the crash, but weather may have also been a factor. The runway was wet with rain from Tropical Storm Alma.

"The plane inexplicably circled the city twice and it ran out of runway because it landed more than halfway down" the length of the strip, airport manager Carlos Ramos told the Channel 7 television network.

The plane "didn't touch down were they normally do, at the start of the runway ... and that is being investigated," Ramos said.

Many passengers walked away from the accident.

Mirtila Lopez, 71, said she was talking to another passenger when the plane "left the runway, hit electric cables from a nearby street and then got stuck in the side of a small ravine."

Taca released a statement saying that 60 of the passengers were from Honduras, 17 from Costa Rica, and nine from Argentina. There were seven Americans, three Mexicans, two Spaniards, two Brazilians, and two Colombians aboard. Almost all the remainder were from other Central American countries.

Honduran air officials said they would close the terminal to large jets and permanently transfer those flights to the former military airfield at Palmerola.

Larger jets will now operate out of the Palmerola airport, also known as the Soto Cano base, about 30 miles north of the capital.

Used by the United States during the Central American civil wars of the 1980s, Palmerola has the best runway in the country at 8,850 feet long and 165 feet wide and is used most for drug surveillance planes.

There have been calls for years to replace the aging Toncontin airport, whose short runway, primitive navigation equipment and neighboring hills make it one of the world's more dangerous international airports.

The airport was built in 1948 with a runway less than 5,300 feet long — shorter than that of a small field such as Municipal Airport in Goldsboro, North Carolina

The altitude of some 3,300 feet forces pilots to use more runway on landings and takeoffs than they would at sea level. And because of the hills, pilots have to make an unusually steep approach.

In 1997, a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane overshot the runway at Toncontin and rolled 200 yards before bursting into flames on a major boulevard, killing three people aboard.

The worst crash associated with the airport came in 1989 when a Honduran airliner hit a nearby hill, killing 133 people.

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Rutland hospital facing third wrongful death lawsuit of year

The Rutland hospital is facing its third wrongful death lawsuit this year.

The family of a Brandon man who died early last year after taking an insulin overdose and slipping into a diabetic coma is seeking $4 million from Rutland Regional Medical Center, according to papers filed earlier this month in Rutland Superior Court.

The lawsuit alleges the hospital prescribed five times the appropriate dosage of insulin to 68-year-old Robert Forrest.

Hospital vice president for corporate development Larry Jensen said the hospital has a policy of not commenting on legal matters.

Jack Welch, the attorney for the family, said Forrest had recently been switched from one form of insulin to another that was five times as concentrated, but health care providers at the hospital failed to take note of this in Forrest's chart when he went there in December 2006.

"He came to the hospital because he was suffering from the effects of unstable sugar levels that left him somewhat hypoglycemic," Welch said.

Forrest was stabilized and sent home, Welch said, with instructions to take "75 units" of insulin. Welch said the instructions did not specify a concentration, and when Forrest's niece called the hospital to double-check the dosage, she was assured it was correct and told Forrest should inject the insulin and eat supper.

Welch said Forrest went into a diabetic coma the next morning. Forrest's death certificate says he died Feb. 19, 2007, from complications of hypoglycemia brought on by insulin injection and he injected the wrong amount of insulin. The death was ruled an accident, according to the certificate.

Welch said it was not clear who switched Forrest to the higher concentration or why, but the records clearly show the switch took place in November 2006.

"The hospital evidently failed to take the time to read his chart and find he'd been changed," Welch said.

The lawsuit seeks "at least" $4 million.

"We've predicated the damages on the egregiousness of the error … in addition to the pain and suffering this man experienced," Welch said. "Here was a man who could, apparently, hear and see, but at the same time not communicate, not respond, not do anything, a classic form of pharmacologically induced locked-in syndrome."

Welch said Forrest was not completely unresponsive, but seemed to be able to respond to verbal stimuli by moving his eyes.

"The bottom line is, they need to be careful to not be giving out medical advice without being clear first that the charts support whatever advice they're giving," Welch said.

At least two other wrongful death lawsuits are pending against the hospital.

In February, Welch filed a $2.1 million lawsuit against the hospital on behalf of the family of an elderly woman who died after falling out of bed at the hospital. The lawsuit alleges the woman was not properly monitored.

Earlier this month, attorney Christopher Larson brought a lawsuit on behalf of the family of a Mount Holly man who died following an automobile accident. That lawsuit claims the man was killed by a combination of poor supervision, improper traction and the overuse of pain and muscle relaxing medications and seeks unspecified damages.