World News joined 2

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[OMEN]

When the father of one-year-old Ankita arrived at the Sydney's Scribbles and Giggles child-care centre to pick her up, he found the doors and windows locked, the lights switched off and no sounds from inside.

There was no obvious signs of life, but the centre was not empty. Lying alone and unattended in a small room was Ankita. The NSW Department of Community Services confirmed to the Sydney Morning Herald last night that the toddler had been left alone in the Rydalmere Centre on May 26.

"A child was left in the centre for a period of time," a department spokeswoman said.

She could not confirm how long Ankita had been left in the centre. Her parents - who wished only to be known as Gayatri and Bharat - were very distressed. "My wife called at 5.45pm to let them know I was on my way to pick up the baby, but no one answered the phone," Bharat said yesterday. "When I got there I found the child-care centre closed. It was dark; there was nothing happening there. That was a shock to me because it was only 6.04pm and the centre closes at 6pm.

"At that point I started to freak out because I thought, 'Nobody has called us, there's a chance the baby could be inside'. We couldn't get in touch with anyone from the centre."

Gayatri and Bharat made a number of frantic phone calls, then called the police, who arrived within 10 minutes.

Officers tracked down the owner of the centre, who arrived soon after with a set of keys. "He arrived about 6.50pm. My wife was crying. We went into the centre and switched on the lights. We opened one door and there was no one inside.

"Then we noticed the door to the next room and there she was, lying in the dark.

"She was lying on a bouncer, harnessed, sleeping. I could make out from her face that she was OK. I was just extremely relieved. I picked the baby up and just held her in my arms and she started crying."

Ambulance officers gave Ankita a clean bill of health.

The parents said staff from the centre had apologised profusely. The manager of Scribbles and Giggles could not be contacted last night, while the owner of the centre refused to comment.

SMH

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[OMEN]

US President George W Bush condemned violence in Zimbabwe and attempts to intimidate opposition figures as "deplorable" and said election and human rights monitors should "blanket the country."

"The continued use of government-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe, including unwarranted arrests and intimidation of opposition figures, to prevent the Movement for Democratic Change from campaigning freely ahead of the June 27 presidential runoff election is deplorable," he said in a statement.

Over the weekend, police arrested Arthur Mutambara, leader of a breakaway faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, and Eric Matinenga, an opposition parliamentarian and lawyer to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

"It's troubling, it's disturbing and it is a part of a continuing pattern on behalf of ZANU-PF (the ruling party) to try to intimidate those who would like to speak up with views different than those held by the government," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

Tsvangirai won a March 29 ballot against President Robert Mugabe, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, but not by a big enough margin to avoid a second round of voting.

Bush urged the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, the United Nations, and other groups to immediately send election and human rights monitors to the country.

The MDC says more than 50 people have been killed in election-related attacks since March and blames elements within ZANU-PF for the deaths. Mugabe's officials say MDC supporters are responsible.

The opposition and human rights groups also accuse 84-year-old Mugabe and his supporters of trying to intimidate opponents and fear the president will seek to rig the run-off poll.

McCormack said it was incumbent upon the United States and others to apply as much "positive pressure and leverage" as possible to ensure a free and fair run-off poll. He did not elaborate on what that pressure might entail.

Mugabe, for his part, has accused the United States of political interference in the electoral process in Zimbabwe and has threatened to expel US Ambassador James McGee.

Asked whether the United States had made plans for McGee's possible expulsion, McCormack said: "We have a whole embassy of people who are focused on issues, either all or in part, on issues related to this election and who have continued to speak out and continue to be a voice and beacon for freedom."

Bush also said he was concerned about reports that Mugabe's policies would result in one of the worst crop harvests in Zimbabwe's history and he criticised his participation in a summit in Rome aimed at addressing the global food crisis.

"While Robert Mugabe makes political statements in Rome, his people continue to face empty markets at home," Bush said.

Reuters

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[OMEN]

Barack Obama has made history by seizing the Democratic nomination and becomes the first African-American to run for president of the United States.

In jubilant scenes at the Xcel Centre in Minneapolis-St Paul in the heart of America's Midwest, Senator Obama announced that he had won sufficient delegates and superdelegates to claim the nomination.

"Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another - a journey that will bring a new and better day to America. Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States," he said.

He thanked the Democratic Party and, in particular, his adversary on the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton.

"Senator Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign not just because she's a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she's a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight," he said.

In a poignant moment he also thanked his grandmother, who was watching from Hawaii because she is too frail to travel.

"She poured everything into me and made me the man I am today," he said.

But then he turned his attention to the Republicans and John McCain, who will hold their convention in the same venue that Senator Obama chose for his victory speech.

"My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign," he said.

But Senator Obama's victory was somewhat blunted by another loss in South Dakota, where Senator Clinton won, 56 per cent to 44 per cent with 35 per cent of the vote counted. He was expected to win Montana.

In New York, Senator Clinton told a rally of supporters she was making no decisions about her future.

"Now the question is: 'Where do we go from here?' I am making no decisions tonight."

She told her supporters she would be consulting advisers and party leaders about the next step.

The Democrats are hopeful of winning the White House in November after eight years of a Republican President whose popularity has plumbed new depths in the face of a sagging economy and rising petrol prices.

But the immediate challenge facing the party is uniting the party in time to campaign for the November presidential race.

The Clinton camp let it be known today that Senator Clinton would be open to the vice-presidential slot.

New York congressman Charlie Rangel, who is close to Senator Clinton said she had raised the idea herself during a meeting with New York legislators on Tuesday.

Other options include being part of an Obama cabinet, perhaps as Secretary of Health.

Senator Obama will be under enormous pressure to offer her a senior job in order to heal the party, and ensure that Clinton voters do not switch to the Republican Party or stay home on election day. But there are many doubters about whether the two could work together as president and vice-president after such a vigorous primary race.

Reuters

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I wanted Hillary to win:sad:

[OMEN]

Grieving Chinese parents said they will press forward with protests against officials they blame for schools that toppled in a devastating earthquake a day after police sought to silence complaints.

The quake centred in southwest China's Sichuan province has killed 69,107 people with many thousands missing and likely dead, according to the latest official figures. Many parents of the 9000 or more children killed blame flimsy schools and the officials who they claim ignored building safety rules.

In Dujiangyan, a small city near the Sichuan province capital Chengdu, some of those parents vowed to keep up their complaints a day after police prevented some 150 of them from seeking to lodge a lawsuit over a collapsed middle school.

"The government has said it will address our complaints, but the officials are too corrupt to actually do anything," said Zhao Deqin, a mother whose 15-year-old twin daughters, Yajia and Yaqi, attended the Juyuan Middle School and were in a building of classrooms that collapsed, killing hundreds of pupils.

"Many lawyers have offered to help us, and we're going to certainly sue the government and the school."

Officials have said more than 200 children at the school died, but parents say 400 or more may have been killed and pointed out that apartments nearby stayed upright while the school building fell. With China's "one-child" population controls, many parents lost their only offspring.

On Wednesday, the area around the school was guarded by troops. One tearful couple nearby said their son had died there in the quake and today would have been his 16th birthday.

"We'd like to file a lawsuit," said the man, surnamed Zheng, who showed his late son's identity card. "It's all this tofu dregs building," he said, using a Chinese phrase for shoddy construction.

In past days, some Chinese newspapers have reported on the many schools that fell, citing experts who have blamed brittle concrete, thin or non-existent steel reinforcement and improperly positioned pillars.

But the protests by parents have not been reported locally, and efforts by officials to discourage foreign reporters talking to parents underscore the sensitivity of the school issue when the government wants the focus on massive relief efforts for millions of displaced people.

"This is going to be a touchstone issue that brings together questions about how to deal with the quake aftermath – accountability, the public interest and compensation," Xu Wu, a former Chinese journalist and now a public relations expert at Arizona State University, said of the schools.

"Normally four to five weeks after a disaster, relatives of victims recover from the initial shock and become more demanding and questioning. I think that will start happening."

In Beijing, lawyers have held meetings on the rights of quake victims and issued calls for a thorough inquiry into the schools.

"That it was school rooms that collapsed first in the earthquake is a national disgrace," rights campaigner Xu Zhiyong told a recent forum, according to a transcript seen by Reuters.

Relief workers continued to search for a crashed military helicopter and guard against dangerous quake lakes. There were 19 people aboard the aircraft, including 10 injured quake survivors.

Troops and disaster officials have also been seeking to defuse threats from the more than 30 unstable "quake lakes" created by quake-caused landslides choking rivers and endangering hundreds of thousands of people downstream.

Authorities must be on high alert against lightning attacks on tents and pre-fabricated housing units, which had been going up across the region sheltering millions of homeless quake refugees, the centre said on its website (www.nmc.gov.cn).

Reuters

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[OMEN]

At least 18 people have been injured in a blast by a railway track in the Sri Lankan capital.

The blast came over a week after eight people were killed and 73 injured when a bomb exploded on a train during rush hour in Colombo.

Doctors said 18 people were admitted to hospital.

"All of them were out of danger," said Dr Wilfred Kumarasiri, director at the Kalubovila Teaching Hospital.

The explosion in Wellawatta, a suburb of Colombo, comes amid daily land, sea and air attacks in a bloody civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people.

The military said the bomb was planted along a portion of the rail track.

"It is too early to predict exactly, but it has to be a LTTE attempt, no doubt about it," said Lakxman Hulugalla, Director General at the Media Centre for National Security, referring to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels.

Reuters witnesses reported slight damage to the railway track and minor damage to two train compartments.

The explosion came a day after Tamil Tiger rebels blamed the military for a roadside blast that killed six civilians in the far north.

The rebels, who are fighting for an independent state in the north and east, were not immediately available for comment but usually deny involvement in such attacks.

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