Teacher caught in child porn raids commits suicide
A Queensland teacher charged as part of a major paedophile bust has committed suicide, while another is in hospital after a failed attempt to take his life.
More than 90 men across Australia have been arrested and hundreds more remain under suspicion as part of the six-month Operation Centurion.
One of the men arrested, a 59-year-old Gold Coast teacher, has committed suicide after being charged over the bust, News Ltd reported.
A second Queensland teacher, 48, is recovering in hospital after a failed suicide attempt, News Ltd said.
About 1500 people or individual computers in Australia have been identified in the investigation, which is part of a wider Interpol investigation involving 170 countries.
A policeman, four Queensland teachers and a West Australian sports administrator were among those arrested or summonsed in Australia as a result of the six-month operation.
AAP
Robinson succeeds Paisley as N.Irish first minister
Peter Robinson took over as Northern Ireland's first minister, succeeding Ian Paisley and shoring up last year's agreement to share power with political foes in a regional government.
Martin McGuinness, member of the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party and former Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla, was reappointed as deputy first minister despite tensions with Robinson's pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
Failure to nominate the ministers could have triggered elections and destabilised the fledgling administration whose formation cemented a 1998 peace deal that ended 30 years of bloodshed in which more than 3600 people were killed.
There had been fears that Sinn Fein would stall the nomination process unless it secured a timetable on the transfer of policing powers from London to Belfast.
Paisley, 82, a firebrand Protestant cleric who stepped down on Saturday as DUP leader, set aside decades of hatred last May when he agreed to share power with predominantly Catholic foes.
"He (Paisley) has laid the foundation for this new era and now it is up to the rest of us to build upon it," Robinson told deputies after his appointment.
Gerry Adams, president of the IRA's political ally Sinn Fein, said his party and the DUP had proved politics can work.
"I want to commend Ian Paisley," Adams said. "Today is a day to praise Caesar, not to bury him."
Paisley's jovial appearances over the last year with his former enemy McGuinness have taken many by surprise and led to the unlikely duo being dubbed the "Chuckle Brothers".
Relations with the more businesslike Robinson are expected to be cooler, however.
"There is no elevator that will take us to a successful outcome," Robinson said. "We will just have to take the staircase step by step by step."
McGuinness said building a more prosperous province and securing foreign investment must remain key objectives.
"The honeymoon period is over," McGuinness said. "This is now about hard work. People out there are expecting results."
The IRA pledged to disarm in 2005, pursuing a united Ireland through peaceful means, but its continued existence and sporadic attacks by splinter guerrilla groups mean many DUP members are in no hurry to see a locally controlled police force.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will meet Robinson and McGuinness in London on Friday, aiming to put in place a process to deal with the issues, his office said.
Reuters
EU stands firm against whaling
The European Union agreed to take a unified stand against whaling ahead of a International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting this month.
"With this decision the European Union can now take a strong role at the International Whaling Commission and use all its political, moral and economic weight to ensure a more effective protection of whales worldwide," said EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.
The European Commission has been spearheading efforts to find a joint position but as the 27-nation bloc is not yet a party to the IWC, it cannot negotiate on behalf of member states.
Environment ministers meeting in Luxembourg adopted a common position based on support for the current moratorium on commercial whaling, the setting up of whale sanctuaries and encouraging the use of non-lethal methods to collect scientific data.
"There is no need to kill whales to obtain scientific information about whales," the EU's executive Commission said in a statement. "Adequate data for management purposes can be obtained using non-lethal techniques," it added.
Reuters
Clinton vows to support Obama
Hillary Clinton will declare her strong support for Barack Obama's White House bid and rally supporters around him, she said in a letter, drawing the curtain on a gruelling 16-month nominating fight that badly split the Democratic Party.
Clinton will publicly back Obama on Saturday and pledge to work for party unity in the general-election race against Republican John McCain.
"On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy," the New York senator and former first lady said in a letter to her backers released early on Thursday morning.
"I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party's nominee, and I intend to deliver on that promise."
Clinton confirmed she would hold an event in Washington on Saturday to thank everyone who had backed her campaign. The event was originally planned for Friday but the day was switched to allow more supporters to attend.
"This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans," she said in the letter.
"I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise."
Clinton has not decided whether to officially close the campaign or suspend it, allowing her to keep control of her delegates to the nominating convention, aides said.
Clinton spent much of Wednesday talking to supporters, many of whom urged her to halt her bid now that Obama has clinched the nomination. Obama attended two fund-raising events in New York City on Wednesday night and acknowledged her decision.
"Your junior senator from New York engaged in an extraordinary campaign," he told attendees at one fund-raiser. "Now that the interfamily squabble is done, all of us can focus on what needs to be done in November."
Obama, the first black candidate to lead a major US party into a White House race, announced a three-member team to head his search for a running mate as he began the task of unifying the party the day after clinching the nomination.
McCain proposed that Obama join him for a series of joint summer town-hall meetings across the country. Obama's campaign manager called the idea "appealing" but proposed format changes and made no immediate commitment.
Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late President John Kennedy, will vet prospective Obama running mates along with former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and Jim Johnson, former chief executive of the mortgage lender Fannie Mae, who performed the same task for Democrats John Kerry in 2004 and Walter Mondale in 1984.
Near the top of their agenda will be questions about a possible teaming with Clinton, who has indicated interest in the job after her presidential bid fell short.
"We're going to be having a conversation in coming weeks," Obama told reporters when asked about the former first lady. He said he was confident the party would be unified to win the general election.
After news of Clinton's decision broke, Obama adviser Linda Douglass told reporters she ran a great race.
"Her supporters have every reason to gather and celebrate that and we're confident the party will be united with her help," she said.
Clinton's supporters turned up the pressure for her to be named as Obama's vice presidential candidate. Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, said he wrote to the Congressional Black Caucus urging members to push Obama to choose Clinton.
Obama's campaign said the search was just beginning.
"Senator Obama is pleased to have three talented and dedicated individuals managing this rigorous process," spokesman Bill Burton said. "He will work closely with them in the coming weeks but ultimately this will be his decision and his alone."
The victory by Obama, son of a black Kenyan father and white mother from Kansas, marked a milestone in US history. It came 45 years after the height of the civil rights movement and followed one of the closest and longest nomination fights in recent US political history.
Reuters
Zimbabwe vote 'should be called off'
Zimbabwe's presidential election run-off should be scrapped to prevent further bloodshed, the ruling party defector who came third in the first round said.
Former finance minister Simba Makoni won over 8 per cent and his votes could in theory be crucial in swinging the June 27 contest between opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and veteran President Robert Mugabe.
Makoni, who favours a national unity government, told reporters that Zimbabwe could not afford another election and it would not end the political crisis and economic collapse.
"We are convinced that the last thing our country and its people need is another election. Besides, the violence now gripping the country bodes ill for a free and fair election," Makoni said on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in Cape Town.
Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the March 29 presidential election but failed to win the absolute majority needed to avoid a second ballot.
Makoni's campaign had said before the first round that he would back Tsvangirai if voting went to a run-off, but since then he was not formally endorsed the opposition leader.
Mugabe's vow never to allow Tsvangirai's MDC to take power has stoked opposition fears that the ruling ZANU-PF will use intimidation and vote-rigging to extend the president's 28-year rule. Tsvangirai was detained for nine hours on Wednesday as he campaigned southwest of Harare.
The opposition says 65 people have been killed by Mugabe's supporters since the election. On Wednesday it said soldiers and ZANU-PF activists had beaten and threatened to shoot Zimbabweans who wanted to support Tsvangirai.
Mugabe says the opposition is responsible for violence.
The MDC said Tsvangirai, who has been arrested and even beaten by police in the past, had continued his campaign on Thursday.
He described his detention as "yet another indication of the lengths that the Mugabe regime is prepared to go to in order to try and steal the election". Makoni said harassment of opposition leaders and assaults on lawyers and people dealing with the victims of political violence was aimed at creating a hostile environment for a free and fair run-off.
"And if the leaders will that the elections be put off so that we can save lives. . . then it is not beyond us if we will it that the elections be called off," he said.
State media reported on Thursday that the ruling ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai's MDC have set up a joint team to stop political violence.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper said the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) had facilitated the establishment of a committee comprising ZANU-PF and MDC officials to stem violence.
But MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the team was unlikely to stop the violence.
"This all appears bold on paper, but not in practice," Chamisa told Reuters.
Reuters
Sri Lanka bus explosion kills 20
A roadside bomb has exploded near a crowded passenger bus in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, killing 20 people and wounding 47.
The blast occurred during the morning rush hour in the southern suburb of Moratuwa. The military blamed Tamil Tiger rebels for the blast, the latest attack on civilians in or near the capital this year.
"The bomb was planted on the road side, hidden in a bush and then exploded using a remote control," said an official of the police bomb disposal unit, asking not to be named.
A Reuters witness said the bus was shredded by shrapnel and the floor was covered in blood and debris.
"I was on my way to office and suddenly I heard a loud explosion and saw people screaming with blood all over," said Aruna Wickramarachchi, a 45-year-old hotel worker.
"My leg was also injured from the explosion," Wickramarachchi said, adding that she was among about 100 passengers on the bus.
The latest attack comes as Sri Lanka's military presses its offensive to retake the Tamil Tigers' northern stronghold in daily land, sea and air attacks in a civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people since 1983.
The military blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the blast.
"It is the LTTE who are behind the explosion," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara.
The attack comes two days after the military blamed the rebels for a bomb blast on a railway track that wounded 27 civilians in Colombo.
The rebels, who are fighting for an independent state in the north and east of the island, were not immediately available for comment but usually deny involvement in such attacks.
Fighting between the military and the LTTE has intensified since the government formally pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact in January, though a renewed civil war has been raging since 2006.
Analysts say the military has the upper hand in the latest phase of the long-running war given superior air power, strength of numbers and swathes of terrain captured in the island's east.
But they still see no clear winner on the horizon.
Reuters
Israeli troops kill gunman, bystanders
Israeli troops have killed a Palestinian gunman during an incursion into the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops operating close to the border east of Gaza City spotted an armed man and shot him. She said an Israeli soldier was wounded in the exchange.
In an air strike earlier on Friday, a missile destroyed an outpost belonging to Hamas militants, critically wounding one gunman. A number of bystanders were also hurt, Hamas said.
A second air strike was aimed at a building suspected of being a munitions workshop in Gaza City. The army spokeswoman said the missile missed its intended target.
The attacks came in response to a cross-border mortar strike on an Israeli industrial plant near the Gaza frontier on Thursday which killed a factory worker. A young Palestinian girl was killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday.
Israel has tightened a blockade on the Gaza Strip and often conducts air strikes and raids into the territory which it says are aimed at ending frequent rocket and mortar fire at towns and agricultural communities close to the border.
Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction a year ago in a brief but bloody civil war.
Violence along the Gaza border has marred peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas, who holds sway in the West Bank. Egypt has so far failed in efforts to broker a truce to curb the rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip.
Reuters
Aussie teen charged over school explosion
A 14-year-old boy has been charged over an explosion and fire which caused $A5 million worth of damage to a school in southwestern NSW.
The Hay High School's science/library building suffered severe structural damage in the explosion on July 3 last year, police said.
"Police believe the explosion was as a result of arson," a NSW Police statement said.
Local detectives investigated the incident with the arson squad.
Deniliquin Sergeant Miles Rogers said the damage to the school had affected many people in the community.
"Debris from the explosion including a solid external door travelled some 50 metres off the block and neighbouring homes and shops had windows broken," Sgt Rogers said.
A 14-year-old Hay youth has been charged with aggravated break and enter and with committing a serious indictable offence.
He was given conditional bail to appear at Hay Children's Court on July 7.
- AAP
3 dead, 7 missing in Russia ship blast
A gas explosion and fire aboard a cargo ship undergoing repairs at a shipyard in Russia's Kaliningrad region has killed three workers with seven more still missing.
The blast onboard the Yenisei was caused by a "violation of safety rules caused by work on the fuel tank," RIA reported, quoting a source close to the investigation.
Reuters
**More News to follow on this Story***
Obama, Clinton hold private meeting: media
Likely US Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and former rival Hillary Clinton have met privately at her home in Washington, news media reported.
CNN reported it was "a small meeting" with perhaps just the two senators and a few aides in attendance.
There were no details of what was being discussed.
There is intense speculation Obama might pick Clinton as his running mate for November's presidential election against Republican John McCain.
Obama has said the process would take time. Clinton, who has expressed an interest in running as vice president, sought to distance herself on Thursday from efforts by supporters to convince Obama to pick her, saying the choice was up to him.
Obama, an Illinois senator, clinched the Democratic nomination on Tuesday. Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, did not immediately concede but told supporters in a letter she would formally back Obama on Saturday.
The meeting with Obama was initiated by Clinton after a daylong series of talks between their aides, The New York Times reported on its website.
Obama had been scheduled to fly back to Chicago after a rally in northern Virginia but stayed behind for the meeting, shedding his campaign plane and the traveling press corps and entourage, the newspaper said.
- Reuters
Mars Lander struggles with 'clumpy' soil
Dirt that the Phoenix Mars Lander scooped recently from the planet's surface may be too clumpy to be analysed by the machine's onboard system, Nasa says.
A robotic arm retrieved a cup-sized sample of Martian dirt on Friday and placed it on the lander's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyser, or TEGA, which was scheduled to spend about a week determining the soil's water and mineral content.
The TEGA features a screened opening that prevents large particles from clogging it. Only those thinner than 1mm can pass through, and an infrared beam verifies whether they have entered the instrument.
The beam has not yet confirmed any activity and researchers are not sure why, Nasa said in a statement.
Scientists suspect the soil may be clumped together too tightly, Nasa said.
"In the future, we may prepare the soil by pushing down on the surface ... then sprinkle a smaller amount over the door," Ray Arvidson, the team's science lead, said in the statement.
Engineers are also looking for a way to shake some of the current sample down into the TEGA oven, where it would be heated and analyzed.
Scientists may send instructions to vibrate the compartment after they inspect the problem for a day or two, spokeswoman Sara Hammond said.
The lander will also gather other soil samples, examine them with a microscope and mix them with water to determine their composition, Hammond said.
The $US420 million ($NZ554.30 million) lander spent 10 months journeying from Earth and touched down on Mars 12 days ago. Its three-month mission was proposed after the Mars Odyssey detected frozen water below the Martian surface in 2002.
This is the lander's first attempt to analyse soil, which might contain salt left behind by evaporated water or ice.
The single-use compartment will go unused if scientists are unable to coax any particles to fall down, but there are seven others like it onboard, Hammond said.
Reuters
Dozens missing after Ukraine mine blast
An underground gas explosion at a colliery in Ukraine's Donbass coalfield injured at least three miners with a further 37 missing, officials said.
The blast occurred at about 5am Sunday local time, about 1 km underground at the Karl Marx pit in the Donetsk region, the heart of the coalfield.
"The blast was very powerful. It shattered windows in the mine's administrative office and damaged the paneling of a lift," said Marina Nikitina, spokeswoman for the regional mine safety inspectorate.
Nikitina said four miners had been injured and 37 were missing.
Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry put the number of injured at three, with 40 unaccounted for.
Gas explosions are a frequent occurrence in Ukraine's outdated mines, many of which are loss-making and date from the 19th century.
Three explosions at the Zasyadko mine in Donetsk late last year killed 106 men in two weeks.
Reuters
Pakistan's ruling party seeks curb on Musharraf's power
Pakistan's ruling party has said it is determined to curtail the powers of the presidency in favour of parliament, whether President Pervez Musharraf likes it or not.
Staunch US ally Musharraf, facing a chorus of calls to resign, told journalists at the weekend, in his first meeting with the media for weeks, that he had no plan to quit.
At the same time, Musharraf sounded a generally conciliatory tone saying parliament, dominated by opponents since his allies were defeated in a February election, was supreme.
Musharraf's fate has consumed the attention of the new coalition since the polls, despite an economy that is deteriorating rapidly and a potent threat from al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Pakistan's stock market and currency have both come under pressure because of a combination of factors, including the uncertainty over Musharraf and worry about more turmoil in the nuclear-armed country.
In the meeting with journalists at the weekend, Musharraf said he would accept proposed constitutional amendments the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto aimed to push through parliament.
But in what media interpreted as a warning he would not tolerate a cut in his powers, a confident-sounding Musharraf indicated he would not like to be reduced to a ceremonial head of state, saying he could not become a "useless vegetable".
The PPP brushed aside any objections, saying parliament was sovereign and could make or amend laws and the constitution regardless of whether Musharraf liked it or not.
"Such hollow warnings would not deter the democratic forces from restoring the powers of the parliament," PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement.
Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, who leads her party, has called Musharraf a "relic of the past" and says the PPP does not recognise him as a constitutional president.
Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister former army chief Musharraf overthrew in a 1999 coup and who leads the second largest party in parliament, wants Musharraf impeached or tried for treason.
Sharif's brother, Shahbaz, was on Sunday elected chief minister of Punjab, the country's richest and politically most important province, bolstering the power of their party that won the most seat in the province's assembly in February.
Reuters
