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[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