World News joined 5

[OMEN]

Prince Philip will not have to give evidence to the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and her lover Dodi al-Fayed, the coroner said.

Queen Elizabeth will not have to answer questions either.

"In my judgment it is not expedient to call the Duke of Edinburgh to give evidence, nor do I think the Queen should be asked to answer the questions by Michael Mansfield," the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, said, referring to the lawyer for Mohamed al-Fayed, Dodi's father.

"Neither step will, in my judgment, further the inquest process."

Mohamed al-Fayed, an Egyptian-born retail tycoon, has always wanted Prince Philip to answer questions on his relationship with the princess, who died along with Dodi in a Paris car crash in 1997.

Al-Fayed accuses the royal family of wanting to "get rid" of Diana and has suggested that Prince Philip was behind the plot.

When he appeared before the inquest last month, al-Fayed was asked if Prince Philip was at the heart of the conspiracy.

"That's right," he said.

The inquest earlier heard, however, that Prince Philip and Diana had enjoyed a warm relationship, with the two exchanging letters as far back as 1992 and Diana referring to him as "Dearest Pa".

French and British police investigations have both concluded that Diana and Dodi died as a result of a tragic accident caused by a speeding driver who was found to have been drunk. Both inquiries rejected al-Fayed's theories.

The driver, Henri Paul, a Fayed employee, also died

Reuters

[OMEN]

Zimbabwe's government will not invite observers from countries critical of President Robert Mugabe's rule to monitor a general election due later this month, a government official said.

The state-controlled Herald newspaper on Friday quoted Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi as telling diplomats in Harare that the government had selected 47 foreign observer teams "on the basis of reciprocity, objectivity and impartiality in their relationship with Zimbabwe."

"Clearly, those who believe that the only free and fair election is where the opposition wins, have been excluded since the ruling party, ZANU-PF, is poised to score yet another triumph," Mumbengegwi said.

The southern African country - in the middle of a severe economic and political crisis - votes on March 29 in presidential, parliamentary and council elections.

The most important contest will be between Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, former ally Simba Makoni and old rival Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the biggest faction of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Critics say Mugabe has rigged elections since 2000 to cling to power. The veteran leader denies the charge.

The Herald said Russia was the only European country invited while 23 African and several Asian nations would also monitor the polls, along with teams from regional economic blocs.

Mumbengegwi said all diplomats, including those from the West, accredited to Zimbabwe on a full-time basis could observe the polls.

"Only those diplomats who are accredited on a full time basis - and not those on temporary assignment - and wish to observe the March elections, will be granted accreditation upon their request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," he said.

Tsvangirai's MDC slammed the government's decision to bar western election observers, saying the move proved the process was flawed.

"What this means is they have something to hide," Luke Tamborinkyoka, director of information in Tsvangirai's faction, said.

"If they didn't have anything to hide, they would not have invited just their friends. This shows they have skeletons in their cupboards and intend to rig the process under minimum scrutiny."

Political analyst Eldred Masunungure of the University of Zimbabwe said while the move did not come as a surprise given Mugabe's defiance of his Western foes, it could undermine the legitimacy of the poll.

"This discrimination, apparently in favour of friendly states that are expected not to query certain aspects of the election, dims prospects of an election that will get universal acceptance," Masunungure said.

Mugabe accuses Western countries, especially Britain and the United States, of sabotaging Zimbabwe's economy and working with the opposition to oust him over his controversial policy of seizing white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks.

An economic crisis marked by the world's highest inflation rate above 100,000 percent and shortages of food, fuel, and electricity has piled pressure on Mugabe.

But analysts say he could still win the election because the opposition has failed to unite behind one candidate.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has called for anti-whaling activists and Japanese whalers to show restraint, a day after an activist said he had been shot during a clash in Antarctic waters.

Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd group's protest ship Steve Irwin, said yesterday he was shot, but survived because he was wearing a kevlar vest.

Japan's fisheries agency said coastguard officials had only thrown "flash grenades", which are used for crowd control and are not regarded as weapons, after activists threw stink bombs on to the Japanese factory ship the Nisshin Maru.

"The Australian government absolutely condemns any conduct or activity on the high seas which either causes injury or has the potential to cause injury or risk to the safety of people at sea," Smith told reporters in the western city of Perth.

"We have consistently, and I again, call on all parties to show restraint. What is required here, even in the face of great provocation, is calm and restraint."

Watson's ship has been harassing the Japanese whaling fleet for weeks. In an earlier confrontation, two activists boarded a Japanese ship in January and were held until an Australian fisheries patrol vessel intervened.

Japan, which considers whaling to be a cultural tradition, abandoned commercial whaling after agreeing to an international moratorium in 1986, but began what it calls a scientific research whaling programme the following year.

It plans to kill nearly 1,000 whales during the Antarctic summer.

Australia has promised to try to stop Japan's whaling programme but the two countries have agreed not to let the issue hurt bilateral ties.

Smith said the Japanese government had said no guns were fired, but he said the use of flash grenades was an unwelcome development, though he acknowledged the Japanese were under heavy provocation.

He added that the Australian Federal Police and Japanese authorities are cooperating in evaluating the reported incidents.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela have ended their dispute, publicly shaking hands at a summit after a week of troop buildups that also saw several countries cutting ties with Colombia.

"And with this ... this incident that has caused so much damage would be resolved," leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said before standing up and shaking hands with his US-backed Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had blamed the United States for the crisis as he sent tanks to the border with US-ally Colombia, joined in shaking Uribe's hand vigorously, applauding loudly and smiling broadly.

The resolution of the dispute, which erupted on Saturday when Colombia raided inside Ecuador to kill a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was a surprise ending to the summit.

The handshakes were broadcast live on television across Latin America in response to a special request from summit host Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez.

Earlier Uribe and Correa had clashed at the meeting.

Correa had called his conservative Colombian counterpart a liar after he accused him of links to guerrillas.

The crisis had spread across the region with leftist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua joining Ecuador in cutting diplomatic ties with Colombia, while Venezuela and Ecuador poured troops to their borders against the strongest US ally in the region.

Nicaragua responded to the ending of the dispute by restoring ties with Colombia.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Spain's main political parties cancelled their closing campaign rallies, two days before an election, after a former councillor from the governing Socialist Party was shot dead in the Basque Country.

The government blamed ETA separatists for the killing of Isaias Carrasco, who was shot several times in front of his wife and young daughter outside his house in the town of Mondragon.

Whether Carrasco's murder would have any effect on the outcome of Sunday's election, in which the Socialists are favourites, was not immediately clear.

In 2004, Socialist Party leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero became prime minister as a result of a surprise election victory three days after an attack by Islamist militants who killed 191 people by bombing Madrid trains.

Both the Socialist Party and the opposition Popular Party cancelled rallies scheduled for Friday, the last day campaigning is allowed.

"Spanish democracy will not accept challenges from people opposed to its basic principles," Zapatero told a news conference in which he blamed ETA for the killing.

"The people who have taken part in this murder will be arrested and tried," said the prime minister, who was told of the killing while waving to followers at a campaign rally in the Andalusian city of Malaga. Television images showed him turn stony faced after a senior official spoke in his ear.

Zapatero broke off peace talks with ETA in December 2006 after they killed two people with a car bomb. His Socialist party leads the conservative Popular Party in opinion polls.

He has led a crackdown on ETA, but the Popular Party has accused him of being soft on the Basque separatists in the past.

"This is a day of mourning. We should all stand by the family of Isaias Carrasco and remain united, united against ETA," said Popular Party candidate Mariano Rajoy.

Julian Santamaria, a politics professor at Madrid's Complutense University, did not think the killing would alter voting intentions.

"It might mean more people get out and vote on Sunday," he told Reuters.

Leftist voters are historically more prone to abstention than conservatives, and Zapatero's surprise victory in 2004 was due partly to an unusually high turnout by young voters angered by the then PP government's blaming the train bombings on ETA.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades in its fight for independence of the Basque Country, in northern Spain and southern France, even though polls show most Basques do not want this.

A neighbour described how he was awoken by the shots.

"I could see him (Carrasco) lying on the ground and his wife and daughter were just shouting 'What's going on? They shot my father three times," Enrique Balmedo, 26, told Reuters by telephone.

Until now, the issue of Basque separatism had played a relatively minor part in the elections, which have been dominated by debate over the slowing economy and immigration.

The Popular Party, founded by supporters of former dictator Francisco Franco, was 4 percentage points behind the Socialists on Monday before a pre-electoral ban on publishing opinion polls came into force.

Zapatero hopes his socially liberal policies, such as legalising gay marriage and making divorce easier, will bring young voters to the polls despite signs that a decade-long boom fuelled by rising house prices and readily available credit may be ending.

House prices have fallen by 3.5 per cent in nominal terms from their peak in July, after tripling in 10 years. Unemployment has risen by almost 10 per cent in a year to 2.3 million.

The Socialists hope higher infrastructure spending and a 400 euro tax rebate will help keep the economy growing at 3 percent a year and create jobs for idle construction workers.

The Popular Party wants cuts in taxes on salaries and companies and tighter immigration controls to reduce the strain on public services.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A KEY advisor to Barack Obama quit overnight after calling Hillary Clinton a "monster'' and sparking a new Iraq war policy row, as the hyper-competitive Democratic White House race took another nasty twist.

A day ahead of the next showdown, the caucuses in the western state of Wyoming, the Clinton camp crowed it was "amateur hour'' in the Obama campaign's foreign policy team, after Pulitzer prize winner and Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power's explosive remarks during a book tour in Britain.

The episode suggested the frustration in the Obama camp after the former first lady's comeback wins in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday revived her campaign.

"We f***ed up in Ohio,'' Ms Power told the Scotsman newspaper.

"In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win,'' Ms Power was quoted as saying.

"She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything,'' Ms Power said.

"You just look at her and think, 'Ergh.'''

Ms Power afterward issued a statement through the Obama campaign saying she was sorry, but Ms Clinton's backers pounced in a conference call, and her resignation came within two hours.

"I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor, and purpose of the Obama campaign,'' Ms Power said when she resigned.

Ms Power, author of the acclaimed book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, also caused a stir in an interview with the BBC in which she appeared to suggest Mr Obama might water down a vow to get US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months of becoming president.

"He will of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a US senator,'' said Ms Power in the interview.

"You can't make a commitment ... in March of 2008, about what circumstances are going to be like in January 2009.''

Former US State Department spokesman and Ms Clinton advisor James Rubin said Ms Power had been exposed by inadequacies in the Illinois senator's foreign policy apparatus.

"I feel sorry for her, that she has been put in a position where he can't run a foreign policy team,'' Mr Rubin.

"It's the man at the top who has not organised himself.''

But Mr Obama attempted to clarify the situation.

"Senator Clinton used this to try to imply that I wasn't serious about bringing this war to an end. I just have to mention this because I don't want anybody here to be confused,'' he said while campaigning in Wyoming.

"It was because of George Bush with an assist from Hillary Clinton and John McCain that we entered into this war.''

"I have been against it in 2002, 2003, 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8 and I will bring this war to an end in 2009.''

Mr Rubin tied the affair to the row last week over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) when the Obama campaign was accused of telling Canada their candidate's fierce anti-NAFTA rhetoric was for political positioning.

"It's amateur hour on making foreign policy,'' said Mr Rubin.

Mr Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe however said Mr Obama's Iraq war vow was a "rock-solid commitment.''

The latest nasty twist to the campaign came as a new poll showed the two deadlocked in their epic battle to represent the party in the November 4 presidential election.

A national Newsweek poll released Friday showed the two in a virtual tie among Democratic voters, with Mr Obama with 45 per cent support against Ms Clinton's 44 per cent.

The two were also virtually equal in voters' eyes on the issue voters see most important: the sagging economy.

Ms Clinton and Mr Obama will tonight face down in Wyoming, which offers only 12 delegates - a candidate needs 2025 to clinch the party's nod - and on Tuesday, the more significant Mississippi primary, with 33 delegates.

Mr Obama is favored in both, but with his current delegate count at 1581 to Clinton's 1460, according to the independent website RealClearPolitics, neither contest will settle the fight.

Agence France-Presse

[JohnCenaFan28]

An Englishman who survived the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz and dedicated his life to telling the story of the Holocaust, has died, aged 97.



Leon Greenman was living in Holland with his Dutch wife Esther, and their son, when they were rounded up in 1943 and sent to the death camp in Poland.

His wife and three-year-old son Barney died there but London-born Mr Greenman survived six different death camps.

Mr Greenman was freed when Buchenwald was liberated by the Americans in 1945.

Mr Greenman later said he had promised God if he lived, he would let the world know what happened during the war.

Services against racism

His first public speech took place in 1946 and in 1995 a permanent gallery telling his story was established at the Jewish Museum in north London.

Three years later, he received an OBE for services against racism.

Mr Greenman never remarried and spent his final years in Ilford, east London.

BBC Jerusalem correspondent Tim Franks, who interviewed Mr Greenman in 1995 to mark the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, said he literally lived behind bars there - with bars on the windows and his letterbox sealed - as he had been targeted by neo-Nazis.

But this did not stop him from doing his work or dim his determination, our correspondent said.

BBC News

[Stamkos]

(CNN) -- Police have arrested a man in the killing of Auburn University freshman Lauren Burk, who died this week, according to the Auburn, Alabama, assistant police chief.

Courtney Larrell Lockhart, 23, of Smiths, Alabama, is charged with capital murder during a kidnapping, capital murder during a robbery, and capital murder during an attempted rape, Tommy Dawson said Saturday.

The Phenix City Police Department took Lockhart into custody on Friday, police said. Phenix City is about 35 miles southeast of Auburn.

Investigators have the suspect's photo, which was enhanced with the help of NASA, Dawson said, according to The Associated Press. Dawson said the photo matched Lockhart, but he declined to say how police got the photo or why they think Lockhart is linked to the crime.

Burk, 18, from Marietta, Georgia, was found shot on North College Street, a few miles north of campus, on Tuesday night. She died later at a hospital.

Minutes after police responded to the call reporting an injured person and found Burk, they found a car -- which turned out to be Burk's -- on fire in a campus parking lot.

Dawson told reporters Friday that authorities think gasoline or another accelerant was used to ignite Burk's car, and police were investigating whether a gas can found in downtown Auburn was connected. Police want to investigate every possible lead, Dawson said.

Authorities were still on patrol in the east Alabama campus, he said.

[OMEN]

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has resigned, dissolving a coalition too divided over the loss of Kosovo to carry on governing.

"This is the end of the government," he told a news conference. "I have called a government session on March 10 to discuss dissolution of parliament."

He said it was likely that a snap election would be held on May 11, the date already set for local elections in Serbia.

The nationalist leader has indirectly accused his pro-Western coalition partners of giving up on defending Serbia's claim to Kosovo in favour of better ties with the West, which backs Kosovo's secession.

He said part of the coalition wanted Serbia to be a member of the European Union only if the independence of Kosovo, which two thirds of EU members have recognised, is revoked, while a majority did not want EU membership linked to Kosovo.

His decision to end the government puts him in direct conflict with Serbia's pro-Western president Boris Tadic and his party, who formed the backbone of the coalition which came to power 10 months ago.

Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) says it would support a Serbian Radical Party (SRS) resolution in parliament, calling on the EU to "clearly and unambiguously" confirm Serbia's territorial integrity, as a condition for further European integration.

Tadic's Democratic Party and their liberal G17 Plus partner opposed the resolution in cabinet earlier this week and defeated it 2-to-1.

The pro-EU parties say the resolution will not bring back Kosovo -- whose Albanian majority declared independence on February 17 with Western backing -- but put a halt to Serbia's bid to join the European Union, which is their key policy aim.

Reuters

[OMEN]

ELECTION SETBACK: The ruling coalition in Malaysia has won with only a simple parliamentary majority, say election officials as violence rocked the country's east.
Malaysia's ruling party faced its biggest electoral debacle, as the opposition won five of 13 states, putting a dark cloud on the prime minister's political future.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's multi-racial National Front coalition managed to win just a simple majority in parliament and will form the government at the federal level.

But it lost a crucial two-thirds parliamentary majority it has held for most of its 50-year-long rule, the election body said. That level is needed to change the constitution.

The leftist Chinese-backed Democratic Action Party (DAP) won Penang state, which houses many multinational firms.

The opposition Islamist party PAS scored shock victories in the northern heartland states of Kedah and Perak and easily retained power in its stronghold in northeastern Kelantan state.

DAP and PAS also joined the People's Justice Party, or Parti Keadilan, to take control of the industrial state of Selangor and almost all the seats in capital Kuala Lumpur.

"Tomorrow we will start building a brighter future," opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim, whose wife heads Parti Keadilan, told reporters. "This is a new dawn for Malaysia."

The shock defeat in Penang stirred memories of the last time the ruling coalition failed to win a two-thirds majority, in 1969, when deadly race riots erupted between majority ethnic Malays and minority Chinese.

"This is the biggest defeat ever since our (party's) founding 40 years ago," Penang Chief Minister Koh Tsu Koon said. "I feel sad and surprised. I urge all National Front members to stay calm and not to take any action that could jeopardise peace and security in the state."

Police vowed to use tough internal security laws against anyone spreading rumours and banned victory processions, one of which had triggered the 1969 violence.

Results from the elections commission as of 2100 GMT showed the National Front with 137 seats in the 222-seat parliament versus 82 for the opposition, with 3 seats still being tallied.

"This looks like a revolution," PAS Vice-President Husam Musa said. "The people have risen and are united. The message to government is, 'Enough is enough."'

The poll, called before it was due in May 2009, was widely seen as a referendum on Abdullah's rule, and Malaysians took the opportunity to administer a stinging rebuke over price rises, religious disputes and concerns over corruption .

"I think the PM will potentially have to resign," said Bridget Welsh, a Malaysia specialist at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. "This is unprecedented. The only other time this happened was in 1969 and that's why everybody is very nervous now because of the uncertainty."

Works Minister Samy Vellu, chief of the Malaysian Indian Congress, one of the National Front parties, lost the seat he had held for nearly 30 years, because many Indians thought he was out of touch with their concerns.

Two other cabinet ministers, both ethnic Malays, also lost.

Detained ethnic Indian activist and lawyer M. Manoharan delivered another slap in the face of the government, winning a parliamentary seat despite being held under internal security laws for organising a major anti-government protest last year.

Chinese and Indians account for a third of the population of 26 million and many complain the government discriminates in favour of Malays when it comes to education, jobs, business and religious policy.

About 70 percent of Malaysia's 10.9 million eligible voters had cast ballots, the country's top poll official said.

Opposition rallies drew big crowds, especially Chinese and Indian voters unhappy with Abdullah's Malay-dominated coalition.

"This clearly shows Malaysians want an alternative. Going forward Malays, Indians and Chinese all have to work together and make a formidable pact," Anwar said.

The National Front held 90 percent of the seats in the outgoing federal parliament. Political experts had predicted Abdullah's continued leadership could be in jeopardy if his majority fell back below 80 percent, or around 178 seats, in the new 222-seat parliament.

The economy grew 6 percent last year but inflation and a likely US economic slowdown have fueled worries.

Reuters

[OMEN]

President Vladimir Putin Has warned the West it could expect no easing of Russia's combative foreign policy under his protege, president-elect Dmitry Medvedev.

At his first meeting with a foreign leader since his election, Medvedev stressed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he would seek continuity in foreign affairs.

Putin, speaking to reporters at a joint news briefing with Merkel before the Medvedev meeting, dismissed hopes that his protege would strike a softer tone in foreign policy after being sworn in as president in May.

"I have the feeling that some of our partners cannot wait for me to stop exercising my powers so that they can deal with another person," Putin said. "I am long accustomed to the label by which it is difficult to work with a former KGB agent."

"Dmitry Medvedev will be free from having to prove his liberal views. But he is no less of a Russian nationalist than me, in the good sense of the word, and I do not think our partners will have it easier with him."

When Merkel later met Medvedev, she referred to Putin's comments, quipping: "I refrained from saying 'I hope they won't become more difficult either"'.

Medvedev said: "I am assuming we will have a continuation of that cooperation which you have had with President Putin... You have had big negotiations and that makes my task easier."

Putin, who is expected to preserve significant influence as Medvedev's prime minister, has been credited at home with restoring some of Russia's international clout after the chaos of the 1990s.

But the former KGB spy has clashed with the West over Nato expansion, Kosovo's independence, US plans to put a missile shield in central Europe and the war in Iraq.

The relationship between Medvedev and Merkel, a physicist from the former East Germany who speaks Russian, is likely to play a key role in relations between the two countries and with the European Union.

Merkel, after meeting Putin, said she saw Medvedev as her "immediate partner in dialogue" ahead of the Group of Eight's meeting in Japan later this year.

Merkel was expected to voice concern about the fairness of the vote Medvedev won after international observers and opposition groups have criticised the March election as unfair.

Putin says the election was held in strict accordance with the Russian constitution.

Germany is by far Russia's biggest single trading partner, with a record $US52.8 billion ($NZ67.05 billion) in bilateral trade in 2007. German firms put $US3.4 billion into Russia last year and have key investments in Russia's energy sector.

Merkel, who has in the past scolded Putin over human rights, has also sought to boost trade with Russia's booming economy and to mediate between Moscow, Washington and Russia's EU partners.

The German Chancellor has been more critical of Putin's Russia than her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, but is keenly aware of Germany's dependence on Russian energy and Moscow's role in international disputes like Iran.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A van packed with Chinese rural migrant workers collided with a truck in the country's north, killing 10, state media reported.

The van was licensed to carry eight people but had 14 onboard when it slammed into a coal truck in Hebei province, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The van owner has been held by police for investigation.

China's roads are among the deadliest in the world, and nearly 90,000 people died in traffic accidents in 2006.

At this time of year, tens of millions of workers from poorer villages crowd onto buses and trains to seek work in coastal cities and provinces.

Reuters

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The governing Socialist Party of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has claimed victory over the conservative Popular Party in Spain's general elections.



It remains unclear if the Socialists have secured the 176 seats needed for an absolute parliamentary majority.

With two-thirds of votes counted, the Socialists were projected to win 168 seats to 154 for Mariano Rajoy's PP.

"We can say with confidence that the Socialist Party has won," said party secretary Jose Blanco.

To the cheers of euphoric government supporters wielding flags in the Socialist red and white colours outside the party's Madrid headquarters, Mr Blanco said: "It is a great victory."

He added that Mr Zapatero was "in a better position to govern over the next four years and begin a new period of change and progress with a Socialist government".

But the BBC's Jonny Dymond in Madrid says activists are waiting to see how the vote count translates into seats.

Correspondents say the result may force the party to re-forge an uncomfortable alliance with smaller regional nationalist parties.

High turnout

The elections were marred by Friday's killing of the former Socialist councillor, Isaias Carrasco, in the Basque Country.

Police have blamed Basque separatists for the shooting, which brought election campaigning to an early close, but so far no group has claimed responsibility.

There had been a high turn-out before polling stations closed at 2000 (1900 GMT).

Historically, the PP has had a more solid core vote, and a higher turnout has tended to benefit the Socialists.

In 2004, voters turned out in high numbers - galvanised by the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people three days earlier - to give Mr Zapatero a surprise victory over Mr Rajoy's conservative government.

This time, the faltering economy, rising inflation and unemployment, and immigration have all been high-profile campaign issues.

Credit crunch

After a decade of good growth, Spain's economy is stuttering. Inflation is at a 10-year high and unemployment is the highest this century.

The Spanish housing boom is dwindling, exacerbated by the global credit crunch.

Mr Rajoy's conservative opposition party focused on immigration, a bigger issue than in previous polls.

The Socialists, meanwhile, highlighted the liberal reforms of their time in office, including the introduction of a gender-equality law, fast-track divorces and same-sex marriage.

Spain's 35 million voters were electing 350 members of the Cortes, or lower house of parliament, and 208 members of the 264-member upper house, the Senate.

The remaining 56 Senate seats are decided by indirect election by assemblies in Spain's 17 autonomous regions.

Smaller parties, such as the United Left Party, and Catalan and Basque nationalist parties may hold the balance of power if the race is close.

BBC News

[OMEN]

US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has dismissed as "gamesmanship" his rival Hillary Clinton's suggestion that he become her running mate on a Democratic White House ticket headed by her.

"I'm not running for vice president. I'm running for President of the United States of America" and commander-in-chief, Obama told a rally in Mississippi.

Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton in recent days have talked up the idea of a joint ticket.

But Obama's supporters have suggested that was little more than political manoeuvring by Clinton, who is lagging in the race to become the Democratic nominee to face Republican Senator John McCain in November's US presidential election.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Israel and Hamas Islamists who control the Gaza Strip have been holding their fire as Egypt tries to mediate a truce.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied any agreement to halt military action against militants in the coastal enclave, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he believed Israel would go along with a deal.

Abbas said Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main groups in Gaza behind cross-border rocket fire at Israel, wanted assurances their leaders would not be attacked by the Jewish state.

A Gaza truce sought by the Palestinian president could be key to US-brokered peace efforts but also benefit Hamas, which seized the coastal enclave in June after routing Abbas' more secular Fatah forces.

Israel has not struck in Gaza since Thursday, three days after it ended an offensive that killed 120 Palestinians.

The number of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel has dropped sharply since Olmert said on Wednesday Israel would have no reason to attack Gaza if the daily salvoes stopped.

Hamas' armed wing has not itself claimed responsibility for firing any rockets since Israel wrapped up its ground and air assault. In the absence of Israeli "aggression", Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the group had no cause to launch them.

"It seems that Hamas has decided for now not to shoot. And we're not shooting either," said an Israeli official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"This could well become a ceasefire. But the ball is in Hamas' court," the official said.

In new public comments on the lull, Olmert insisted Israel was not negotiating with Hamas "directly or indirectly". But in a nod to a possible de facto truce, he repeated that if rockets were not fired at Israel, "we will have no reason to shoot".

Speaking in Amman, Abbas said: "Hamas and Islamic Jihad have asked that their leaders should be protected from Israeli (attack). I think the Israelis are agreeing to this or have agreed. We may be hearing about this deal in the coming few days."

Israel, the United States and the European Union refuse to talk with Hamas, which opposes peace talks, until it recognises Israel and renounces violence.

The recent fighting along the Israel-Gaza frontier and longer-range rocket salvoes that hit a major southern Israeli city had threatened to derail the statehood talks.

In protest at the bloodshed in Gaza, Abbas briefly suspended the negotiations. They are due to resume later this week.

An Israeli political source said there had been "an exchange of ideas" between Israel and Hamas via Egyptian mediators. The source did not elaborate.

The political source said Olmert was keen to calm violence with Hamas so that talks with Abbas could make progress and enable him to present a viable peace platform to voters should the statehood moves force a new Israeli election.

Amid much scepticism, Washington has said it hopes to achieve a deal before year's end on Palestinian statehood.

For Hamas, a ceasefire would be particularly attractive if it included an easing of an Israeli-led Gaza blockade. Israeli generals, however, are concerned Hamas might use a lull to regroup and rearm after last week's punishing Israeli offensive.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A suicide bomber has blown himself up among US soldiers in central Baghdad, killing five and wounding three in the worst single attack on US forces in the Iraqi capital in nearly a year.

The US military said in a statement that the blast, which also wounded an Iraqi interpreter, hit the soldiers while they were on foot patrol. Iraqi police said at least nine Iraqis were wounded.

The military blamed the attack on a suicide bomber. Police, citing witness accounts, said the soldiers had been walking in a main street in the upscale Mansour district when a man wearing an explosives vest walked up to them and blew himself up.

The attack was a reminder that while violence is sharply down in the capital since thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers set up patrol bases in neighbourhoods to curb sectarian violence, it is still far from safe.

Nearly 70 people were killed in a double bombing in Baghdad's central Karrada district last Thursday in attack that the US military blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

"We remain resolute in our resolve to protect the people of Iraq and kill or capture those who would bring them harm," Colonel Allen Batschelet, chief of staff of US forces in Baghdad, said in a statement after Monday's attack.

The statement said four soldiers were killed in the blast and one died later of wounds.

A police official at Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital said nine wounded Iraqis had been admitted, including a policeman. "They said a suicide bomber, a man, blew himself up among American soldiers," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Reuters cameraman said US forces sealed off the scene of blast, which occurred outside a large computer store.

WOMAN BOMBER

Monday's deaths took to at least 3,979 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. Seven soldiers have died so far this month, compared to 81 for the whole of March 2007.

The worst previous single attack on US soldiers in Baghdad was in June, when five soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack on their patrol.

Some 2,000 US soldiers are being withdrawn from Baghdad under a Pentagon plan to pull out five brigades from Iraq by July 31. A second brigade in the capital is also due to be withdrawn.

The US military says the withdrawal timetable will not be affected by last week's bombing. They are part of the 30,000 extra troops sent to Iraq last year which the US administration said was meant to give the Iraqi government time to reach a political accommodation with its opponents.

In other violence on Monday, a female suicide bomber killed a prominent Sunni Arab tribal chief who headed a neighbourhood security unit and three others in the volatile Iraqi province of Diyala on Monday, police said.

The neighbourhood units have been credited by the United States for sharp falls in violence across Iraq.

Police said the woman went to the home of Thaer Saggban al-Karkhi in Kanaan, southeast of the provincial capital Baquba, knocked on the door and told guards she needed to speak to him.

When Karkhi came to the door she detonated a vest packed with explosives she was wearing hidden underneath her robes, police said. Karkhi's niece was among the dead and two of his bodyguards were wounded.

Al Qaeda has increasingly used women wearing suicide vests to carry out strikes after tighter security and protective concrete blast walls made car bombings more difficult.

US military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said on Sunday that a recent increase in bombings was not the start of a wider trend and that violence was down overall.

Reuters