NEW YORK – A New York City ferry that slammed into a pier in May and was damaged has been put back into service after undergoing repairs.

The Andrew J. Barberi resumed carrying passengers between Staten Island and Manhattan on Sunday morning. It was the ferry’s first trip since the May 8 crash, which injured several people.

Federal investigators suspect a defective part caused the crash at the Staten Island terminal.

The National Transportation Safety Board says tests confirmed the ferry’s propulsion system wasn’t responding properly. Components were replaced, and the problems went away.

The ferry also crashed into the pier in 2003 when its pilot passed out at the wheel. Eleven people died. The ferry was rehabilitated.

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SYDNEY (AFP) –
Australia vowed to leave “no stone unturned” on Monday after a plane carrying one of the country’s richest men and other mining bosses went missing over dense jungle in western Africa.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised full diplomatic and consular assistance after the twin turboprop plane carrying tycoon Ken Talbot and other top personnel from Sundance Resources disappeared on Saturday.

“This is deeply concerning to all of us,” Rudd told reporters.

“All of our diplomatic and consular resources are being dedicated to this… we will leave literally no stone unturned in our efforts to try and help what is a concerning set of developments for these families.”

The plane was also carrying two people from France, two Britons and an American, as well as two crew, from Cameroon‘s capital Yaounde to the Yangadou mine in neighbouring Congo, local authorities said.

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TEL AVIV (AFP) –
New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch said on Monday that Zimbabwe has broken its promise to halt physical abuse of diamond miners and should have its international certification frozen.

The call came in a new report issued by the group to coincide with a meeting in Tel Aviv of partners in the Kimberley Process (KP) certification scheme, created to prevent the sale of “blood diamonds“.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Zimbabwe should be suspended from the group as it had reneged on a promise made last year to improve conditions at its Marange diamond fields. Such a move would bar the country’s exports of the gems.

Accreditation of Marange’s production was suspended last November but is likely to be reinstated at the Tel Aviv conference.

Several humanitarian groups oppose such a move, arguing instead that the whole country should be disbarred until conditions at Marange are improved.

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HAVANA – A meeting between the Vatican’s foreign minister and President Raul Castro sparked hopes Sunday that more of the island’s political prisoners may be released or transferred to jails closer to home.

State television showed Castro dressed in a suit instead of his usual olive-green fatigues for the meeting with Archbishop Dominique Mamberti.

A statement read during the official nightly newscast said both men discussed an “international agenda.” It called relations between the Vatican and Cuba “cordial, respectful and continuous,” and applauded the “favorable level of relations between the state and the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba.”

Heading to the airport at the end of his five-day stay, Mamberti told reporters only that “it was a very positive meeting.”

During the visit, Mamberti led discussions among religious and academic leaders, including three visiting U.S. researchers, that encouraged dialogue and reconciliation between Cubans and Cuban-Americans.

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LONDON (Reuters) –
The biggest threat to Britain’s economy is its huge budget deficit, and an emergency budget on Tuesday will save the country from the fate of debt-stricken Greece, British finance minister George Osborne said on Sunday.

Measures expected to be included in the budget include a bank levy and reform of welfare benefits and public sector pay. Other plans include payroll tax breaks for new businesses, a council tax freeze and a review of public sector pensions.

“You can see in Greece an example of a country that didn’t face up to its problems, and that is the fate that I want to avoid,” Osborne told the BBC in an interview.

“I’m absolutely clear, I don’t want the question even asked, ‘Can Britain pay its way in the world?’ I’m going to prove on Tuesday that we can,” he said, adding that the budget’s austerity measures would be staggered over five years.

Britain’s budget deficit is at about 11 percent of national output, and reducing the deficit is the centerpiece policy of the new coalition government, made up of the center-right Conservative Party and center-left Liberal Democrats.

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