Two hurt in US mall shooting

A man has shot and wounded two women at a community college branch in a Virginia shopping mall. Source: AAP

A MAN has shot and wounded two women in a US shopping mall before being subdued by police.

The suspected gunman was being interviewed by police on Friday as officers continued to clear the mall in southwestern Virginia, said city spokeswoman Becky Wilburn.

The suspect's name was not immediately released and a motive for the shootings - which happened at a community college branch in the mall - was not known.

One of the victims was airlifted to hospital, but spokesman Eric Earnhart could not provide additional information on her identity or condition.

The other victim was taken by ambulance for treatment. She was in stable condition on Friday afternoon but was transferred to another hospital to get specialised care, said spokeswoman Nancy May.

The shooting happened at the New River Community College branch in the New River Valley Mall in Christiansburg, a town of approximately 21,000.

Student Josh Brown said he was working on a computer near the classrooms when the shots were fired.

"I heard one gunshot, and I didn't know what it was... I saw people running out," he told The Roanoke Times.

Brown then got up and ran out himself.

Wilburn said emergency officials received an emergency call about 2pm local time about someone with a gun and shots fired at the college's satellite location in the mall outside of Blacksburg.

Authorities did not believe there's any continuing threat to the community, Wilburn said.

The community college was closed Friday following the shooting and Saturday classes were cancelled, according to its website.

Schools in the local county were briefly locked down as a precaution.

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US names Russians targeted for sanctions

THE US Treasury Department has announced sanctions against 18 Russians over human rights violations, but avoided some prominent officials that could have inflamed bilateral relations.

US politicians who backed the sanctions viewed the list as timid while a prominent Russian lawmaker said it could have been worse.

US State Department officials denied that political considerations had been a factor.

The list was mandated by a law passed last year and named for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested in 2008 for tax evasion after accusing Russian police officials of stealing $US230 million ($A219.20 million) in tax rebates.

He died in prison the next year, allegedly after being beaten and denied medical treatment.

The list included Artem Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov, two Russian Interior Ministry officers who put Magnitsky behind bars after he accused them of stealing $US230 million from the state.

Two tax officials the lawyer accused of approving the fraudulent tax refunds, and several other Interior Ministry officials accused of persecuting Magnitsky were also on the list.

Absent were senior officials from President Vladimir Putin's entourage whom some human rights advocates had hoped to see sanctioned.

Magnitsky's former client, London-based investor William Browder, who has campaigned to bring those responsible in his death to justice, has claimed that one of those tax officials, Olga Stepanova, has bought luxury real estate in Moscow, Dubai and Montenegro and wired money through her husband's bank accounts worth $US39 million.

The act was linked to legislation normalising trade relations between the United States and Russia, but it drew immediate fire from Russia, which accused congress of interfering with its internal affairs.

Within days, Russia announced that it was banning US adoptions of Russian children.

The Kremlin did not immediately comment on the development, but Alexei Pushkov, the Kremlin-connected chief of foreign affairs committee in the lower house of Russian parliament, called the list "bad news".

But he said the limited list showed restraint.

"It shows that the Obama administration wants to conserve some partnership with Moscow instead of getting involved in some kind of political warfare," he said.

On the list are two men from Chechnya, Letscha Bogatirov and Kazbek Dukuzov.

Bogatirov was accused of killing a critic of Chechnya's Moscow-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov in Vienna in 2009, while Dukuzov was accused of involvement in the 2004 murder of Paul Klebnikov, the US editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition.

He and two other suspects were acquitted in 2006, and while those acquittals were later overturned, a retrial has yet to take place.

A report by Russia's Interfax news agency noted that most of the police and tax officials who were put on the list had left the government service.

Several officials who congressional sponsors of the legislation had said should be sanctioned were not on the list, including Russia's top police official, Alexander Bastrykin.

He has spearheaded a crackdown on the Russian opposition.

Bastrykin's agency also led the investigation into Magnitsky's death and concluded last month that no crime was committed.

Another official not on the list was Chechen leader Kadyrov, who is accused by human rights groups of torture, abductions and killings.

Several of Kadyrov's critics and political rivals have been murdered in recent years in Russia, Austria, the UAE and Turkey.

Kadyrov has consistently denied involvement in the killings.

Democratic congressman Jim McGovern, a leading sponsor of the Magnitsky Act, sent the administration more than 250 names to be targeted.

McGovern, in a statement, said the list was an important first step.

"While the list is timid and features more significant omissions than names, I was assured by administration officials today that the investigation is ongoing and further additions will be made to the list as new evidence comes to light," he said.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said that among the criteria for being put on the list was responsibility for the detention, abuse or death of Magnitsky or involvement in other gross human rights violations in Russia.

The law also allows the administration to compile a separate classified list that would subject officials only to visa bans.

The administration can update both lists at any time.

Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, the author of the Magnitsky law, said in a statement on Friday that he would work with the administration to "ensure that those who should be on this list are in fact on this list".

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Our businesses to benefit from China: Swan

Treasurer Wayne Swan says businesses will benefit from the this week's currency deal with China. Source: AAP

TREASURER Wayne Swan is encouraging Australian businesses to get "ahead of the curve" and push toward greater use of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) currency in their trade dealings.

Mr Swan highlighted this week's historic agreement between Australia and China to allow direct conversion between the Australian dollar and the equivalent yuan unit for the first time.

"It'll be your businesses that benefit in the decades to come," he told the first annual Australia-Hong Kong RMB trade and investment dialogue in Sydney on Friday.

The only other countries with direct conversion are the US and Japan.

Deals settled in yuan now account for about 12 per cent of China's external trade.

But this is expected to grow to 50 per cent by 2015, propelling the yuan to the third most traded currency in the world, after the US dollar and the euro.

Dealings in Australian dollars and the yuan began on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday and Mr Swan said it got off to a good start.

It was a critical step in relations with China, following an unprecedented agreement this week between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and new China Premier Li Keqiang to hold annual talks.

Australia now hopes to make the most of the continuing shift in global economic power from West to East.

"We have to put ourselves in the best position to be part of these transformations," Mr Swan said.

"These are big steps forward in the financial integration of the region.

"Australian businesses are well place to get even more closely involved."

Mr Swan also announced a joint research project on the internationalisation the renminbi, involving oversight by Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Australia.

The Centre of International Finance and Regulation and the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics will study how Australia can become an offshore hub for renminbi trading in the future.

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Howard to attend Thatcher funeral for Aust

John Howard has been named as Australia's official representative at Margaret Thatcher's funeral. Source: AAP

FORMER prime minister John Howard has been named Australia's official representative at Margaret Thatcher's funeral.

Baroness Thatcher died on Monday at the age of 87, and will be buried next Wednesday at a ceremonial funeral with military honours.

Mr Howard had already been invited to attend the service at St Paul's Cathedral in London as one of 24 members of the Order of Merit (OM).

The former Liberal prime minister received the rare insignia at Buckingham Palace in May last year.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Friday confirmed Mr Howard would also be attending as Australia's official representative.

"I have invited the Honourable John Howard OM AC to represent the government and people of Australia at the funeral service," Ms Gillard said in a statement on Friday.

"Mr Howard has kindly agreed."

Mr Howard, who was opposition leader at the same time Baroness Thatcher was in government, said this week the former British PM transformed her country.

"She is the greatest British prime minister since Churchill," Mr Howard told Melbourne radio on Tuesday.

Ms Gillard said out of all of Australia's former prime ministers, Mr Howard had the "deepest connection" to Baroness Thatcher.

"It was the appropriate thing for him to represent the nation at the funeral," she told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

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Mum accused of poisoning daughter

A YOUNG mother has fronted court accused of poisoning her little girl over a 10-month period.

It is understood the 22-year-old from the Gold Coast has been accused of administering chemotherapy drugs to her four-year-old daughter after buying them online.

The mother, dressed in an oversized watchhouse-issue brown sweatshirt and black stretch pants, scowled angrily at the public gallery and shook her head as she was led into the glass-enclosed dock of Brisbane Magistrates Court 3 shortly before noon.

She has been charged with causing grievous bodily harm to her daughter between June 30, 2012 and April 11.

She remained silent and stared at the floor as her duty solicitor told the court they would not be applying for bail.

In a hearing that lasted less than two minutes, Magistrate John McGrath ordered the woman be remanded in custody for a further mention via prison video link on May 20.

The mother was arrested following a joint investigation by South Eastern Region detectives and the State Crime Operation Command's Child Safety and Sexual Crime Group.

The girl is in the Royal Brisbane Hospital in a "dangerous condition'', The Courier-Mail has been told.

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Vic govt defends Aust's biggest job slump

A VICTORIAN government frontbencher has lamented the performance of the national economy as he defended more jobs being lost in the state than anywhere else.

Some 9300 fewer people were employed in Victoria in March compared with the previous month, which was the largest slump seen anywhere in Australia.

Planning Minister Matthew Guy says the figures should be considered in the long-term, noting in February the state added almost 38,000 jobs.

"We know that the economy nowadays is not as strong as it might have been in the boom times of the mid-1990s, for instance, when the national economy was growing at six per cent," he said.

"But what we are seeing, of course, is an important level of restructure in the planning system that will be there to provide an incentive for growth in the future."

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War memorial launches WWI gallery makeover

THE $32 million makeover of the World War I galleries at the Australian War Memorial has begun, with Director Brendan Nelson promising the end result will be truly stunning.

The redevelopment, regarded as one of the most significant modernisations of any gallery in the memorial in recent decades, will coincide with The Great War's centenary when it opens late in 2014.

The Sinai and Palestine galleries have now closed to visitors, with the Gallipoli galleries set to close mid-year.

A temporary WWI exhibition will open later in the year.

Dr Nelson said like any major renovation, there would be some inconvenience, but in the end it would be worth it, with the memorial's architects, historians, archivists and curators putting together what would be a stunning exhibit.

Modern lighting would be installed and new exhibition material, some of which had never been on display, would be on show.

One item to be displayed would be the battledress of Private George Giles, still featuring mud from the battle of Morlancourt, which was collected by historian Charles Bean in 1918 and was one of the initial exhibits when the memorial opened in 1941.

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Women tied to a tree for days: Qld inquest

Three Queensland men linked to an unsolved double murder of two Sydney nurses are to face court. Source: AAP

A SUSPECT in the 1970s murders of two Sydney nurses once let slip incriminating details about their last moments, including that they were tied to a tree for up to three days before being killed, a Queensland court has heard.

Donald "Donnie" Laurie, who died in 1994, told his one-time housemate that Lorraine Wilson and Wendy Evans had been tied to a tree for two or three days and that he had wanted to give them water, the Toowoomba Magistrates Court heard on Wednesday.

Former housemate Betty Staib was giving evidence at the second inquest into their murders via phone link.

She said the conversation happened in the late 1970s, after the pair watched a television crime show about the unsolved killings.

"I was like, 'How do you know these things Donnie?'," Ms Staib told the inquest.

"He straight away looked at me like he'd said too much and said, 'I get to hear things'."

Ms Staib said she later tried to talk with Laurie about the murders, but felt "he was on to me" and stopped.

"I believe he was there.

"What he was telling me you couldn't know without being there," she said.

Ms Staib reported the conversation to police and Laurie was questioned, but never charged.

He is one of several "persons of interest" in the case, along with his dead nephew Allan John "Shorty" Laurie and dead former friend Wayne "Boogie" Hilton.

Surviving suspects Terrence O'Neill and Allan Neil Laurie are due to give evidence later on Wednesday, along with another associate, Desmond Hilton.

Ms Wilson, 20, and Ms Evans, 18, disappeared while hitchhiking in Queensland in October 1974.

Their skeletal remains were found two years later in bushland, at Murphys Creek, at the foot of the Toowoomba Range.

The inquest continues.

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Fake Rockefeller 'a master manipulator'

A man who posed as a member of the Rockefeller family likely killed his landlord and his wife. Source: AAP

A GERMAN man who posed as a member of the famed Rockefeller family after allegedly killing his landlord in California likely killed the man's wife too, prosecutors say.

The claim came as both sides rested their cases against Christian Gerhartsreiter, who also passed himself off as an English nobleman and a Hollywood producer for two decades after the alleged killing.

The bespectacled 52-year-old, wearing a navy blue suit, showed no reaction as prosecutor Habib Balian made his closing statement to the jury in the downtown Los Angeles Superior Court.

Gerhartsreiter is charged with murdering his landlord John Sohus, who went missing in 1985 but whose remains were only found nine years later in the backyard of his home in the upscale LA neighbourhood of San Marino.

Sohus' wife Linda vanished at the same time, as did Gerhartsreiter -- who moved to Connecticut and changed his name a number of times, eventually becoming Clark Rockefeller and getting married, fooling even his wife for 12 years.

"This isn't a movie. This isn't a TV show, this isn't a book. Right here, right now, this case is about two people who lived. It's about things that happened to those two people," said Balian.

"Not only did the defendant kill John Sohus. Not only does all evidence indicate that he killed Linda Sohus. Not only did he end these people's lives, but he came in here and blamed the woman that he killed."

Balian said that Gerhartsreiter, and not the victim's missing wife, was the "master manipulator" who was able to cover his tracks and evade police for decades with fake identities.

According to the prosecutor, Gerhartsreiter borrowed a chain saw from a neighbour, burned a blood-soaked carpet, and told a friend who was wondering about the dug-up backyard that he had "plumbing problems."

"He was lying about a recently dug grave," Balian said.

John Sohus' head was found wrapped in two bags from two universities in California und Wisconsin attended by Gerhartsreiter. "How many people (went) to both universities" and also lived there, Balian asked rhetorically.

But Gerhartsreiter's lawyer Jeffrey Denner said the prosecution could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the German is guilty.

"There are so many different possibilities," he told jurors, saying there was a lack of either forensic or eyewitness evidence linking Gerhartsreiter to the killing.

"You don't know what happened. And if you don't know what happened, you can't convict anybody," he said, adding that much of the prosecution's case was based on "speculation."

The jury is expected to hear rebuttals on Tuesday to the closing statements, before the jury retires to consider its verdict.

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Coalition's NBN plan a farce: Albanese

AUSTRALIAN households would get internet connections fast enough to download all their entertainment needs under the federal coalition's national broadband network (NBN) plan, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.

The coalition is offering minimum download speeds of 25 megabits per second (mps) by the end of its first term in 2016, if it wins government from Labor this year.

While this is slower than the minimum 100mps being offered under Labor's NBN project, Mr Abbott argues the coalition's plan would be better and cheaper to deliver.

It wants to use technology - which Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has labelled "second rate" - that runs fibre optic cable to the "node", or boxes on street corners.

This means the final connection to a home would be through Telstra's existing copper network, rather than through a fibre optic cable all the way to the premise, as the government is doing.

"We will build fibre to the node and that eliminates two thirds of the cost," Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday.

But Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese said that would be a disaster because, unlike the government's fibre-to-the-premise technology, it couldn't be easily upgraded.

"This policy ... for most cases, won't result in any higher speeds being delivered," he told reporters in Canberra.

Federal independent MP Tony Windsor agreed.

"The 'full-strength' NBN will better enable technologies and services that haven't even been thought of to be delivered," he said in a statement.

The coalition puts the capital cost of its plan at $20.4 billion, against Labor's $37.4 billion.

Including funding, the cost rises to $29.5 billion, against $44.1 billion under the project being overseen by the government-owned NBN Co Ltd.

Queried about the 25mps minimum speed for households, opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said broadband utility flattened out in a residential environment.

Mr Abbott said 25mps would be enough for home usage, adding that at that speed a family of four could simultaneously download four different sport or movie programs.

"We are absolutely confident 25 megs is going to be enough, more than enough, for the average household," he said.

While the coalition is offering only fibre-to-the-node services for most households, high-end users like hospitals, educational centres and new housing estates would get connections to premises.

"It's very flexible," Mr Turnbull said of the policy.

But Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne said the concept of installing tens of thousands of boxes on street corners meant most households would be "stranded" on a decaying copper network while new housing estates got modern fibre technology.

"It's a farce," she said in Hobart.

A 25mps speed is about five times better than what most Australians get now, and if the coalition won a second term, the minimum speed would increase to 50mps for the vast majority of households.

"I am confident that it gives Australians what they need," Mr Abbott said.

Under the coalition's plan, the NBN rollout would be completed by the end of 2019 instead of the current deadline of 2021, with priority given to areas that are most underserviced.

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Diver dies in waters north of Perth

A MAN has died after becoming trapped under water while diving for cray pots in waters north of Perth, police say.

The man's body was recovered near Two Rocks Marina on Monday morning.

It's believed he was free diving - without the aid of breathing apparatus - for cray pots some 4-5 metres below the surface.

Water Police said he was not part of a commercial operation and were unable to reveal further information about the man's identity.

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NSW death certificate 'may be in breach'

A DOCTOR who signed a death certificate for his elderly mother and did not report cuts on her wrists may have breached professional guidelines, an inquest has heard.

According to the death certificate signed by Dr Jerry Schwartz on August 20, 2005, his 79-year-old mother Eva Schwartz died at her Point Piper home in Sydney from lung cancer and a collapsed lung that cut off her oxygen.

Mrs Schwartz's death was not reported as suspicious and an application was filed for her cremation on August 23, 2005, Glebe Coroner's Court was told on Monday.

Counsel assisting the coroner Mark Higgins questioned whether Dr Schwartz acted appropriately and whether his mother's death was reportable.

He said the inquest would seek to determine whether her wrist injuries affected the cause of death and whether they were self-inflicted or occurred after she died.

"The presence of the injuries to the wrists are unusual for a woman such as Mrs Schwartz with no demonstrated history of mental illness ... Would it have been considered to be a reportable death?" Mr Higgins asked.

"Why was the fact she had injuries to her wrists not persuasive to Dr Schwartz that they were injuries of unusual or suspicious circumstances to note on the application of his mother's cremation?"

He noted there was no blood from those wounds in the bed.

The inquest would also investigate whether Dr Schwartz was in breach of medical board conduct guidelines, given that doctors should not perform such duties for their family members, Mr Higgins said.

The inquest continues before State Coroner Mary Jerram.

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Sandy Hook families drive gun debate

Families of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School will campaign for stricter US gun laws. Source: AAP

FAMILIES of those killed in the Connecticut school shooting are becoming an emotional advocacy group in the campaign for stricter US gun laws.

A group of Sandy Hook Elementary School families can take credit for shaping legislation that Connecticut's governor signed into law on Thursday.

Now they're trying to do the same in Washington.

With gun legislation in jeopardy as Congress returns from its spring break, families from Newtown, Connecticut, plan to spend the coming week on Capitol Hill.

Their goal is to speak to every senator who has yet to express support for the gun legislation, and they want to put a human face on the gun debate.

The White House has invited the families to attend President Barack Obama's speech on Monday in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Pope Francis makes first Curia appointment

Pope Francis has named a Spanish Franciscan as No. 2 at the church's office for religious orders. Source: AAP

POPE Francis has named a Spanish Franciscan as No. 2 at the church's office for religious orders, his first appointment to a Vatican bureaucracy badly needing a shakeup.

Jose Rodriguez, who has also been elevated to archbishop, replaces US Archbishop Joseph Tobin.

Tobin has been transferred from the high-ranking Vatican post to a midwestern US archdiocese following his efforts to mediate tensions between the Vatican and American nuns, who in the view of theological conservatives had become too secular and political.

Rodriquez, 60, is an outsider to the Vatican administration and comes from the world of religious orders, like Francis who is a Jesuit.

Rodriguez is well-thought of among the orders, and last year was elected president of an international association that gathers the heads of the male orders.

He has been twice elected head of the Franciscans' Friars Minor order, one of the main branches of the Franciscan order founded by St Francis of Assisi, the pope's namesake.

American nuns have seen the election of a Jesuit pope devoted to the poor as a glimmer of home following a Vatican crackdown under Francis' predecessor, Benedict XVI.

The nuns were accused of focusing too much on social justice - one of Francis' priorities - at the expense of other church issues, like abortion.

Rodriguez' predecessor, Tobin, is now archbishop of Indianapolis, which has fewer than 230,000 parishioners.

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