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[OMEN]

Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have accused potential White House opponent John McCain of favouring the wealthy and turning his back on struggling workers and middle-class families.

The Democratic presidential contenders, campaigning in Pennsylvania ahead of their April 22 showdown, took a break from attacking each other to portray the Arizona senator as uncertain and untested on economic issues.

In separate appearances but similar language, they said McCain would take his economic cues from President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

"John McCain admits he doesn't understand the economy - and unfortunately he's proving it in this campaign," Clinton told the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO union group.

"After seven disastrous years of George Bush and Dick Cheney, the stakes in this election couldn't be higher and the need to change course couldn't be more urgent. But John McCain is only offering more of the same," the New York senator said.

Obama, an Illinois senator, said all McCain offers "is four more years of the same George Bush policies that have gotten us into this pickle".

He noted McCain's support for extending Bush's tax cuts, which Obama said would help the wealthy, and his support for trade agreements that Obama said do not protect US workers.

"His response to the housing crisis amounts to little more than standing on the sidelines and watching millions of Americans lose their homes," Obama said in Wilkes-Barre.

The winner of the Democratic nominating battle between Clinton and Obama will face McCain in November's election, and in recent days both candidates have toned down their attacks on each other to focus more directly on McCain.

They have criticised the former Navy fighter pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam for saying he does not know as much about the economy as he does about national security and military issues.

McCain, on a week-long tour highlighting his military service and life story, visited his former high school outside Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

He said he will soon offer a plan with specifics to help homeowners who are having trouble paying their mortgages because of adjustable-rate loans.

"Senator Clinton's attacks on John McCain are a desperate attempt to change the focus away from the divisive battle within the Democratic Party," said Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant.

He challenged Clinton to explain how she will pay for her new spending proposals.

Clinton proposed a plan on Tuesday to create 3 million jobs through increased investments over 10 years in the US infrastructure, and proposed a $US10 billion ($NZ12.88 billion) emergency fund for critical repairs to bridges and highways.

"People ask me, `What are the issues in this campaign? I say, jobs, jobs jobs and jobs'," Clinton said at a rally in Wilkes-Barre.

On Wednesday, Clinton planned to announce "insourcing" initiatives that would produce $US7 billion a year in expanded tax credits and incentives to encourage companies to create and invest jobs in the United States, her campaign said.

Her proposals would eliminate incentives and close tax loopholes for companies that outsource jobs and use the savings to help create US-based jobs, the campaign said.

Part of the plan would be a $US5 billion tax credit for communities hard hit by global competition and trade, it said.

Clinton and Obama were in Pennsylvania on Tuesday ahead of the next contest when 158 pledged delegates will be at stake.

Some Democrats are concerned the prolonged campaign will hurt the eventual winner in the match-up with McCain.

But Clinton, who trails Obama in pledged delegates won in state-by-state contests, has rejected calls to step aside.

Neither candidate is likely to have the 2024 delegates needed to win the nomination after the contests end in early June, leaving the decision up to nearly 800 superdelegates - elected officials and party insiders who are free to back any candidate.

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the campaign should continue through the end of voting, and repeated her view that superdelegates should not be perceived to overturn the will of the voters.

"I think the election has to run its course," Pelosi said on ABC's Good Morning America.

"I do think that it is important for us to get behind one candidate a long time before we go to the Democratic National Convention if we hope to win in November," she said.

Obama also played down worries the long campaign would hurt the eventual Democratic nominee.

"I think this contest has been good for the Democratic Party. We've brought in all kinds of new people into the process. And I think that bodes well for November," he said on NBC's Today show.

Reuters

[OMEN]

The victim didn't know why police had wanted her to come and see them. She certainly didn't know what they wanted to show her. She was aghast to find out.

Australian police played her video footage of herself and a man called John Xydias. She lay on a bed, apparently drugged.

The video showed Xydias undressing her and re-dressing her in his own female underwear.

Then he carefully repositioned her unconscious body and his video camera to best advantage for what was to come next: he raped her in every possible way.

If she began to stir, he would quickly move off the bed, cover her and turn off the light.

According to a prosecution summary tendered to the Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday, the film showed Xydias assaulting her "time after time".

Watching the videos with police, the woman was distraught.

She felt so sick and was crying so hard she had to call a halt to the viewing.

She told police that she firmly believed Xydias had rendered her unconscious.

Six other women also endured the ordeal of watching themselves being raped and intimately assaulted while they were unconscious.

Four of the other alleged victims Xydias filmed have yet to be identified and two were conscious when he attacked them.

Police describe Xydias as one of Victoria's worst sex offenders. Yesterday he was committed to stand trial on 225 sex-related charges, including 69 of rape, related to 13 victims aged from about 20 to 45.

One woman was kept unconscious at his holiday home in Dromana and raped repeatedly over three days.

Xydias did not formally enter a plea yesterday but lawyer Remy Van de Wiel, QC, said he would plead guilty "to an appropriate presentment".

Xydias smiled dreamily as he entered court. Dressed in a pale blue denim shirt, his honey-blond hair tied back in a scraggly ponytail, he nodded his head rhythmically at various points in the proceedings. When he stood, he clasped his hands in front of his chubby stomach.

According to the prosecution summary of charges Xydias, 44, a Glen Iris chef, first came to the attention of police in March 2006. They were tipped off about a DVD that had once been in his possession that contained footage of "numerous women".

Police linked the footage to a hidden camera in the wall of a change room that was set up for cabaret singers and dancers at the bouzouki club Kinisi Live in Richmond's Church Street.

Police obtained warrants and raided Xydias' family home in Glen Iris and a holiday home in Dromana. They found many tapes, female underwear, photographs of female genitals, cameras and a video camera and tripod.

Thirteen video tapes and four video camera tapes were found to contain explicit footage of Xydias raping unconscious women.

The prosecution summary says Xydias had both legal and illegal supplies of the sedative Rohypnol (known as a date-rape drug).

It is suggested he used alcohol and cannabis and laced victims' coffee or other drinks with Rohypnol to render them unconscious.

One woman reported that he had an appetite for pornography.

Xydias met one of his victims through a phone dating service and others socially, including two through his friend Harry William Barkas, 45, of South Yarra.

Barkas was arrested on August 23 last year and is facing 77 charges including rape and abduction relating to attacks on 30 alleged victims. He is due to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court for a committal mention on May 2.

Xydias was arrested two months earlier, on June 15, and interviewed by the sexual crimes squad.

According to the prosecution summary, he appeared co-operative but provided few names of his victims and gave some incorrect names.

He acknowledged his presence in the videos and the sexual acts but said he was having consensual sex with conscious women and claimed some of the women had filmed him (a claim the victims denied).

The summary says: "The defendant stated that when he was sexually involved with a conscious victim, the free agreement carried on through their loss of consciousness.

"This is despite the fact that numerous victims have never been consensually sexually involved with the defendant.

"The defendant failed to admit he rendered the victims unconscious through the use of drugs or other substances, basically blaming the victim for her loss of consciousness."

He did not show any remorse and did not apologise for his actions: "It was clear the defendant was attempting to avoid prosecution for his actions with absurd explanations."

Xydias was remanded to appear in the County Court on April 29

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Reuters

[OMEN]

Flights to Canada and the United States were targets in an alleged plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean, British prosecutors said Wednesday in London.

Canadian officials say some of the targeted flights included Air Canada flights to Montreal and Toronto.

Prosecutors allege eight British men planned to carry small bombs — made with liquid explosives — in plastic drink containers on board the planes in 2006.

All eight are accused of conspiracy to murder and of planning acts of violence likely to endanger the safety of an aircraft. Both charges carry maximum sentences of life imprisonment.

The trial is set to begin Thursday in London.

Judge David Calvert-Smith told about 100 prospective jurors during a selection hearing on Wednesday that the trial would be long and complex.

"This case concerns an allegation that in 2006 a number of men planned to create bombs which some of their number would take on board passenger aircraft flying from London Heathrow to various destinations in Canada and the U.S.A.," Calvert-Smith said.

The suspects were arrested last August in a two-day operation that led to the cancellations of hundreds of flights in and out of Britain.

Ahmed Abdullah Ali, Assad Sarwar, Tanvir Hussain, Umar Islam, Arafat Waheed Khan, Ibrahim Savant, Waheed Zaman, and Mohammed Gulzar are the eight charged.

CBC

[OMEN]

Tendai Biti, secretary general of the main opposition party in Zimbabwe, addresses a news conference in Harare on Wednesday. Biti said his party had won the presidency, but was waiting for official results.
Zimbabwe's opposition parties have won a combined victory in the country's parliamentary election, according to highly anticipated results from the election commission, while the winner of the presidential race is still unclear.
The latest figures show the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has won 105 seats in the 210-seat House of Assembly, while one was taken by an Independent. President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party won 93 seats, making a majority impossible even if it takes the remaining 11 seats.

The Zimbabwe Election Commission's announcement Wednesday marked the first full release of official election results since Saturday's presidential and legislative vote. Official results for the presidential race have not been announced.

"Keep in mind this is a country where the bulk of the power rests with the president's office, with Robert Mugabe. Those are still the numbers we are waiting for," the CBC's Adrienne Arsenault reported from Harare, the capital.

Zimbabweans read a newsletter distributed by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) updating its supporters on the latest election results in Harare on Wednesday.
"This is a critical moment to say that the ruling party has lost its majority in Parliament."

The MDC released its own unofficial results of the presidential vote Wednesday, claiming victory for its leader Morgan Tsvangirai with 50.3 per cent and Mugabe at 43.8 per cent. ZANU-PF has rejected the opposition's claim, saying it's waiting for official results from the commission.

The announcements came on the same day the state-run newspaper suggested Mugabe's party and the opposition may be headed to a runoff vote, after partial results from legislative elections showed each would win between 96 and 99 seats out of 210.

If no leader takes more than 50 per cent plus one vote, the parties have agreed to hold a runoff, as is required in Zimbabwe.

White House spokesperson Gordon Johndroe said in a statement Wednesday that Washington is monitoring the situation and expects "the will of the people of Zimbabwe to be respected."
Suggestion of regime change

"This matter of the state-run newspaper talking of a possible runoff is really rather remarkable," said Arsenault.

"For it to even contemplate printing anything that suggests anything other than a Mugabe win suggests a number of things," including the possibility that the newspaper is preparing for a regime change, she said.

MDC general secretary Tendai Biti said Wednesday that the unofficial presidential results, which give just 43.8 per cent of the vote to Mugabe, would rule out the legal requirement for a runoff.

"We maintain that we have won the presidential election outright without the need for a runoff," Biti told a news conference, adding that the party would be willing to participate in one if necessary.

The outcome of the weekend elections remains speculative until the commission announces full official results for the presidential race. It was not clear when the results would be announced.

The possibility of a runoff, which would be held three weeks from now, was met with frustration by Zimbabweans who questioned how fair such an election would be without foreign election monitors and journalists in the country.

"Their feeling is that the security forces that are out on the street will start to crack down, it will become a violent place, a dangerous place in the three weeks and at the end of the day, democracy will not have been delivered," Arsenault said.

Delay arouses suspicion

The delay in results has created an atmosphere rife with speculation and anxiety over who will be the south African country's future leader, prompting concerns it may be a sign of vote rigging and fraud. On Zimbabwe's fourth day without full results, new suggestions emerged that the commission might be buying time for closed-door negotiations between the parties.

"Diplomats will tell you privately here that there is a suggestion that there is some sort of behind-the-scenes manoeuvring. Obviously something is happening behind the scenes, because there is no logical explanation for why the results would take this long," Arsenault said.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai denied Tuesday his party was in talks with Mugabe's regarding a possible power transfer, dismissing such suggestions as rumours.

"Any speculation about deals, about negotiations, about reaching out, it's not there," Tsvangirai said during a news conference, insisting his party will not enter into any deals before official election results are released.

"We want to know who has won what before we can claim anything," he said.

Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga also said there would be no negotiations until the results were announced.

The election has presented Mugabe, 84, the country's leader since it gained independence from Britain in 1980, with the toughest political challenge to his decades of rule.

Once praised for bringing health care and education to millions in Zimbabwe, Mugabe has lately been criticized for the economic collapse of his country that has spawned annual inflation above 100,000 per cent and unemployment of 80 per cent.

Food and fuel shortages are rampant, and the rising HIV/AIDS epidemic is said to be causing a steep decline in life expectancy

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Associated press

[OMEN]

A broad-based, full-fledged public inquiry should be launched into the past business relationship between former prime minister Brian Mulroney and German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber, the federal ethics committee has recommended.

The committee's sole recommendation is in contrast to what was advocated by a special adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who called for the inquiry to be narrow in scope.

The committee — which spent weeks hearing testimony from witnesses, including Mulroney and Schreiber — said the inquiry should look into their relationship dating back to the 1980s, CBC's Paul Hunter reported.

Hunter said the bulk of the report consists of highlighting contradictory evidence heard at the committee. He said there will also be three minority reports by individual parties.

One includes a recommendation by the NDP for the Justice Department to set aside a $2.1-million settlement awarded to Mulroney in 1997 over his libel suit against the federal government over the so-called Airbus affair.

The ethics committee report will be tabled Wednesday in the House of Commons. A copy will also be given to David Johnston, the president of the University of Waterloo, who has been asked to establish an inquiry mandate based on the investigation conducted by the committee, as well as his preliminary report.

Johnston has said the public inquiry should be narrow in scope, focusing on unanswered questions that are of true interest to the Canadian public. Johnston said the inquiry should not rehash the details already probed extensively in the RCMP investigations and lawsuits that have examined the 25-year history between Mulroney and Schreiber.

Johnston has been given until Friday to set the parameters for the hearings. Harper has said the inquiry will go ahead once the ethics committee had completed its task.

The committee had been investigating cash payments Mulroney said he received in 1993 to 1994 from Schreiber to lobby on behalf of Schreiber's client, Thyssen, a German armoured vehicle company.

Mulroney said he was paid $225,000 in cash envelopes at three meetings between the two men and insists the business arrangement was struck after he left office in June 1993.

While saying that accepting cash payments was one of the biggest mistakes of his life, Mulroney has said he has done nothing illegal.

But Schreiber has argued that the total was $300,000, and that the arrangement was reached while Mulroney was serving his last days as prime minister in 1993, something that could have put him in violation of federal ethics rules.

CBC

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