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PARIS - The deadliest shooting rampage in US history sent shudders around the world on Tuesday, triggering shock and sympathy along with questions over gun culture in the United States.
As far away as Australia and Japan, world leaders offered condolences to the victims' families, while voicing their horror at the senselessness of the massacre at a Virginia university on Monday that left 33 dead, including the unidentified gunman.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard recalled how a 1996 rampage by a lone gunman in Tasmania that killed 35 people had forced his government to rethink the whole issue of gun control.
"We took action to limit the availability of guns and we showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country," Howard said.
He extended his sympathies to the families of those killed and wounded, saying universities and schools should be "a sanctuary of learning, friendship and social interchange."
In Canada, Public Security Minister Stockwell Day said "the shock and horror of this act has reverberated" throughout the country, while Liberal MP Michael Ignatieff added: "Such a senseless act leaves Canadians stunned and horrified."
Some of the survivors of the massacre at Virginia Tech described the gunman as "Asian-looking" and the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper reported that police had identified him as a 24-year-old Chinese student who arrived in the United States last August on a visa issued in Shanghai.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao was unable to confirm the report.
"As far as we know, this matter is still under investigation and we can't speculate on that," Liu said.
He added that Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing had sent a telegram to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing "shock, condolences and our sincere solicitude to the US government and those affected by the shootings."
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was "shocked" and "saddened," a spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said.
Along with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, the queen is set to pay a two-day visit to Virginia early next month to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown Settlement, her first visit to the United States in 16 years.
In New York, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett opened a speech to business leaders by saying "how horrified we are by the shooting... and how our hearts go out to those affected."
Among other foreign governments to offer condolences was Iran, with which the United States cut ties in 1980 after the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran by Islamic revolutionary radicals.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the massacre was "against divine and humanitarian values."
Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine was in Tokyo when news of the shooting at Virginia Tech broke and Japan, which has strict gun control laws, was quick to offer its sympathies.
"I would like to express condolences from the bottom of my heart," chief government spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki said.
French President Jacques Chirac expressed his "horror and consternation" in a statement from his office.
Chirac "offered President George W. Bush, the families of the victims and the American people his most sorrowful condolences and his total solidarity, both personally and in the name of the French people", the statement said. – AFP/ir
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