World/nation briefs

Last update: November 4, 2009 - 7:50 PM

ZIMBABWE

Latest problem area: Diamond trade

Investigators for an international diamond control body are recommending that Zimbabwe be suspended because its security forces are killing illegal miners and smuggling gems out of the country, a report said. The charges carry particular weight coming from investigators for the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, established in 2002 in an attempt to stem the flow of "blood diamonds" that have funded fighting in Africa. Suspension could result in buyers shunning Zimbabwe's diamonds.

BRITAIN

Coup plotter wants others punished

Coup plotter Simon Mann, pardoned by the leader of Equatorial Guinea after seving 15 months of a 34-year sentence, returned home to Britain after saying he wants those who hired him to topple the African government to face British justice. Among those he implicated in his trial last year was Mark Thatcher, the son of the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

AUSTRALIA

Two fatally stabbed at psychiatric hospital

Two patients were stabbed to death at a psychiatric hospital in Melbourne, and police said they were questioning a patient. The stabbings occurred at Thomas Embling Hospital, where the 49-year-old suspect allegedly armed himself with a kitchen knife and stabbed his roommate and another man. All three had been convicted of murder.

NORTH DAKOTA

Three students likely didn't see pond

Three Dickinson State University softball players found dead after their sport-utility vehicle went into a pond on a North Dakota farm during a stargazing trip likely drove into the water in the dark, authorities said. No foul play is suspected in the deaths of Kyrstin Gemar, 22, of San Diego; Afton Williamson, 20, of Lake Elsinore, Calif., and Ashley Neufeld, 21, of Brandon, Manitoba.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Drivers' texting is called an epidemic

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said that texting-while-driving was an "epidemic," but they declined to endorse proposals that would pressure states to ban the practice. Instead, LaHood and Genachowski said they prefer public education.

CALIFORNIA

Report: Suspect improperly supervised

Corrections officials failed to properly supervise convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido and missed opportunities to discover the girl he allegedly kidnapped and held in his backyard for 18 years, a state report said. The review by Inspector General David Shaw blasted the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's role for the decade Garrido was under state supervision after being paroled in a previous rape case.

NEWS SERVICES

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