British Prime Minister Tony Blair has met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as he continues a trip aimed at breathing new life into the dormant Middle East peace process and bolstering a UN-brokered ceasefire in Lebanon.
A day after extracting a pledge in Jerusalem from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to meet the Palestinian leader without preconditions, Blair arrived in the West Bank town of Ramallah for his meeting with Abbas.
The two leaders shook hands on a red carpet outside the government compound in Ramallah and went inside for talks. They were due to hold a press conference later Sunday.
"There is a tremendous suffering amongst the Palestinian people as a result of the inability to make progress" in the peace talks, Blair said during a joint press conference with Olmert late Saturday.
"It is very important to see what we can do to re-energize this process," he said.
But the embattled Blair, who last week announced that he would stand down in the next 12 months, received a cool reception on the streets of Ramallah, where a demonstration has been called against his visit by groups who accuse him of pro-Israeli "bias."
Blair's office has already said his Middle East trip is unlikely to see any real breakthrough in the peace process, but that it is important to help restart talks.
Olmert told Blair late Saturday that he was ready to meet Abbas -- whom he last saw in an informal meeting in Jordan on June 23 -- without preconditions, but did not set a date.
"I am ready to work closely with the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas, to implement the road map," Olmert said referring to a largely moribund internationally drafted peace blueprint.
"I intend to meet with chairman Abbas in order to make real progress on outstanding issues on our agenda. I have no preconditions or prerequisites for such a meeting," Olmert said after brief talks with the British premier at his Jerusalem residence.
Blair urged both sides to return to the roadmap, which has made next to no progress since it was launched in 2003.
"The only agreement that's ever going to stick... is an agreement where people resolve their differences through politics and not through violence," he said.
"We have a plan to get there -- the roadmap. We have to find a means of getting back to it," he said.
Drafted by the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, the roadmap sets out a series of steps necessary to establish a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
The Israeli government cut nearly all contacts with the Palestinians after the radical Islamist movement Hamas formed a government in March following its upset January parliamentary election victory.
The European Union and the United States froze all direct financial aid to the Palestinian government, demanding that Hamas renounce violence, recognize the Jewish state and agree to abide by past agreements.
On Saturday, prime minister Ismail Haniya wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper that by supporting boycotts and sanctions against his Hamas movement Blair had caused "untold hurt" to the Palestinians.
The letter came two days after a group of Palestinian intellectuals and political groups declared Blair persona non grata in the Palestinian territories, accusing him of "bias" on the Palestinian question.
Prior to his meeting with Abbas, Blair met with senior Israeli officials in Jerusalem and with families of Israeli soldiers seized by militants in Gaza and Lebanon.
A new antidepressant drug designed specifically to treat premature ejaculation proved safe and effective in two large trials, researchers report.
However, it's not likely that dapoxetine, a short-acting selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), will win U.S. approval anytime soon because it can produce side effects, one expert said.
SSRIs, which are used to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders, are now also used "off-label" as a treatment for premature ejaculation. They work because one of their side effects is to delay ejaculation. But, continued SSRI use can have some negative side effects, such as psychiatric problems, skin reactions, weight gain, and loss of libido, experts said.
"This is the first drug specifically developed for premature ejaculation," said lead researcher Dr. Jon L. Pryor, a professor and chairman of urologic surgery at the University of Minnesota. "It worked both in lengthening ejaculation time and in patients' feeling control over ejaculation and both subjects' and partners' feelings of satisfaction with intercourse," he said.
The findings are published in the Sept. 9 issue of The Lancet.
Premature ejaculation is the most common male sexual problem, even more common than erectile dysfunction, affecting 21 percent to 33 percent of American men.
In the study, Pryor and his colleagues looked at the combined results of two trials that tested dapoxetine. The trials included 2,614 men who had moderate to severe premature ejaculation.
The men were randomly assigned to receive a placebo or different doses of dapoxetine. They were told to take the drug one to three hours before having sex. At the start of the study, the men ejaculated, on average, in less than a minute after penetration.
However, after 12 weeks, men taking dapoxetine increased their time to ejaculation to 2.78 minutes for those receiving a 30-milligram dose, and to 3.32 minutes for those receiving a 60-milligram dose, the researchers found. For men taking a placebo, the time to ejaculation averaged 1.75 minutes.
Pryor thinks this study will get people talking more about the problem of premature ejaculation. "I hope this paper brings premature ejaculation out of the closet," he said. "I hope it allows for mature discussion about it, and that people realize that there is hope."
One expert familiar with dapoxetine thinks the drug has promise but will not be available in the United States.
"The problem is that dapoxetine was presented to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year, and they rejected it out-of-hand as a treatment for premature ejaculation," said Dr. James Barada, director of the Center for Sexual Health in Albany, N.Y.
The drug can produce side effects such as nausea, headache, upset stomach and weakness. It is being released in Europe, Barada said.
"Premature ejaculation is a real clinical condition that causes distress for the man, his partner and especially the relationship," he added. "Because we have no approved therapy, we are at somewhat of a loss to treat it. For many years, we have been using off-label therapies -- SSRIs -- because of the side effect they have of delaying ejaculation."
Doctors can still use SSRIs, Viagra, and psychotherapy to treat the problem, Barada said. "We need to get better research to understand the mechanisms of premature ejaculation and hopefully design a medicine that has good efficacy and safety that is not an SSRI," he said.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Atlantis' six astronauts woke up Sunday prepared to inspect the space shuttle's thermal skin for damage as they soared toward the international space station.
NASA managers said hours after Saturday's launch that there was no obvious damage to Atlantis during liftoff. Carrying a 17 1/2-ton addition, Atlantis and its crew were scheduled to arrive at the space station on Monday to restart construction of the orbiting space lab.
The crew awoke to a version of "Moon River" sung by Audrey Hepburn in the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's," a request of commander Brent Jett's wife.
"It really is a beautiful day up here," Jett said. "We're awake and ready to get to work with the inspection."
More than 100 cameras were focused on Atlantis during liftoff to capture any signs of foam breaking off its external fuel tank, the problem that doomed space shuttle Columbia. NASA's cameras spotted three possible hits — two small foam streams and one ice chunk — but they came so late that the debris wasn't moving fast enough to do much damage.
Still, the imagery review was preliminary, and NASA hoped to get a better look from the crew using the shuttle's 50-foot robotic arm, attached to a 50-foot boom with sensors at the end, to take a closer look at the spacecraft's nose cap and wing leading edge.
The inspection technique was introduced after the Columbia disaster in 2003, and Atlantis was to be the third flight to try it out.
In 2003, Columbia's heat shield was damaged by flyaway foam from its external fuel tank during liftoff, allowing fiery gases to penetrate its wing and tear the shuttle apart as it later re-entered the atmosphere. Since then, NASA has struggled to find ways to prevent the hard foam from breaking away.
A video game software maker wants to look over your shoulder while you play, and the company is developing software that will monitor and analyze every move you make.
Sound Orwellian? Some privacy advocates may think so, but the data revealed could help developers and publishers make better games.
Emergent Game Technologies is working on analytics software that will let video game developers and publishers glean information on peoples' behavioral patterns as they play, a company executive said Friday.
More than 15 years in development, Metrics Element, a tool to collect, analyze and distribute game data within a Web-based user interface, will ship around the first of the year.
The software would provide answers to many questions, from what players do in the game and how long it take to reach level 20, to where they spend their money and how many people saw the Pepsi product pitch in the game, for example.
Not only answers, but details on the number of people who viewed the ad, and how long they stayed to either look or interact with it, said Larry Mellon, Emergent vice president of engineering and systems architect.
"Massive multiplayer online games like War of Worldcraft are hitting some of the major problems in computer science," Mellon said. "Scale is one."
Mellon said Blizzard Entertainment Inc.'s War of Worldcraft has more than 6 million players. That means potentially you have 6 million PCs connected to 30,000 servers exchanging information in a real-time 3D virtual world where there are security and internal in-game economic implications, and social-network analysis required.
A probe-package inserts in the video game to collect and transmit data to Emergent's servers. It aggregates and displays the information in charts to view. The technology is written in a combination of Java, Flash, and C + +.
Users can customize the data collected. Engineers might choose to measure frames per second on the client to make sure the games proceed smoothly. Or measure latency between client and server to make sure the interactive game isn't bogged down by slow responses. Developers could measure how players spend their money to optimize ad placement.
The software can even look inside the online network as gamers play to help identify connection points within a game, providing insight into how information moves from one group to another.
"You can see how your marketing network moves, and how news propagates across the virtual world," said Michael Arrington, senior analyst at Acacia Research Group, Vancouver, Wash. "There are privacy concerns, but if you're playing in a MMOG world you've probably already given authorization for the site to collect data in aggregate, as long as they don't identify you as an individual."
Peeking into a live online game as people play will become more important as publishers ad more in-game advertising. Imagine being able to see what gamers do when they first enter a virtual world: Perhaps buy swords, potions or horses.
Knowing what players do in fantasy or sports games would assist developers to determine ad placement for in-game ads. "There aren't many tools that can measure in-game ad performance, and anything that can track users more accurately would help companies justify the motorization of advertising in games," said Colin Sebastian, senior research analyst with Lazard Capital Markets LLC
The analytics software may answer questions for game makers, but it also could create privacy issues.
"Players hate being measured surreptitiously, but as long as you're upfront with them it's typically not an issue," Mellon said. "For MMOGs, where you're continually improving the game over years, it's invaluable to see how people play the game today, when you're trying to plan for tomorrow."
SYDNEY (Reuters) A private funeral service was held for Australian TV naturalist Steve Irwin on Saturday and he will be buried at his family's zoo in the northern state of Queensland, local media reported.
Irwin's father, Bob Irwin, had declined a government offer for a state funeral for his son.
Irwin, known as the "Crocodile Hunter" after his popular TV documentaries which aired around the world, was killed six days ago by a stingray barb to the chest while diving on Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
After the funeral service his body was taken to his family's Australia Zoo wildlife park, where he is expected to be buried, local media reported on Sunday.
Irwin, 44, had flirted with death many times in his "Crocodile Hunter" documentaries, seen by 200 million people, wrestling with some of the world's most dangerous creatures.
News of Irwin's death clogged Internet news sites and drew tributes from around the world. Prime Minister John Howard interrupted parliament to pay tribute to him, saying he was distressed by the loss of a remarkable Australian.
A public memorial service that is likely to draw thousands of mourners was expected to take place later this month.
WELLINGTON (AFP) Media giant News Ltd has put a price on the heads of top All Blacks and will demand compensation if they fail to appear in early Super 14 matches next year.
The Super 14 paymaster is angered by New Zealand's plans to pull 22 leading players from the first half of the 2007 competition so they will be in peak physical and mental shape for the World Cup campaign at the end of the year.
The Australian-headquartered media conglomerate claims the New Zealand plan breaches the Super 14 broadcasting rights deal it has with South African, New Zealand and Australian Rugby (SANZAR), the Sunday Star-Times said.
New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) chairman Jock Hobbs met with exectives of the aggrieved broadcaster in Sydney last week, and was told to name the 22 World Cup contenders who will miss seven weeks of Super 14 rugby.
Once informed, New Ltd. would then talk to broadcasters in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa -- plus Sky TV in Great Britain -- to discuss what News Ltd. spokesman Greg Baxter described as "an acceptable compromise."
Baxter said that would probably involve negotiating a discount on the 660 million New Zealand dollar (418 million US) contract SANZAR signed with News Ltd. in 2004.
"I think so, because clearly there is a value attached to these players. If there wasn't they would not be resting them," the newspaper quoted him as saying.
Baxter said News Ltd. would prefer to avoid a protracted legal argument.
"To us, that is about as far away from where we want this relationship to be as you can get, so that would be an absolute last resort," he said.
"We will be trying to pursue other avenues, which will include the possibility of being compensated for the loss of those players."
The All Blacks to undergo the individually tailored reconditioning programmes were originally intended to be named after the All Blacks Tri-Nations campaign ended in South Africa last weekend.
However, a spokesman said the announcement had been delayed as they were "still working through the process."
The decision to keep players out of the Super 14 championship is part of New Zealand's plan to shake off their tag of World Cup chokers.
"It is critical that our top players have the opportunity to prepare in the right way so that they are in the best shape of their lives when they get to France," NZRU chief executive Chris Moller said.
Since winning the the inaugural World Cup in 1987, the All Blacks have failed in every attempt since, earning them a reputation as "chokers" in rugby's biggest tournament.
MOSCOW - Crying relatives greeted eight miners rescued Saturday from a burning Siberian gold mine after a raging fire killed at least 25 of their colleagues.
The bodies of the last four missing workers were recovered early Sunday.
As the survivors were rushed to hospital Saturday to be treated for hypothermia and carbon dioxide poisoning, they described their two-day ordeal, saying they managed to stay alive several hundred yards underground by sticking together.
"Nobody panicked, nobody quarreled," Yevgeny Slivka told state-run Channel One as he lay in a hospital bed, his face covered with soot.
"We shared one cigarette among the eight of us, we had two pieces of lard that we split into small equal pieces among all, we spread the bread evenly, too — nobody yelled at one each other ... everybody managed to stay together."
Miners' relatives had gathered outside the mine Saturday, waiting in the cold for news, hoping to ask survivors about the fate of those still missing.
But workers searching smoke-filled tunnels found the bodies of the last four missing workers Sunday, bringing the number of dead to 25, said Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Natalya Lukash.
The blaze broke out Thursday in the Darasun mine some 3,000 miles east of Moscow.
Of the 64 who were in the mine when the fire broke out, 31 made it to the surface Thursday, and eight were rescued Saturday.
Another ministry spokeswoman, Yulia Stadnikova, said the fire, which erupted at a depth of 280 feet to 430 feet, was contained Thursday evening, but still burned Saturday and rescue efforts were hampered by damage and smoky conditions.
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu flew to the mine to take charge of the physically and emotionally exhausting operation and to investigate the cause of the accident. Three hundred rescuers took part.
Officials said earlier that negligence during welding work may have sparked the blaze at the mine, which has been in operation since 1901.
The welders first attempted to put out the fire themselves and waited nearly an hour to call for help, which allowed the fire to spread quickly, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency, which cited Nikolai Kutin, deputy head of government safety watchdog agency Rostekhnadzor.
On survivor, Nikolai Selishev, said he and his companions had found an area where fresh air was blowing in and stayed there until smoke and gas lifted enough for them to move further.
The gold and metals mine is operated by London-listed Highland Gold Mining PLC. The 105-year-old mine has been plagued with operational problems for over a year, Dow Jones Newswires reported, badly delaying the schedule for raising output and contributing to the causes of Highland's net loss last year.
The accident "appears to be the worst in the gold mining industry in years," Rostekhnadzor spokeswoman Elena Kaliberda said.
Accidents are common in the mining industries in the former Soviet Union, where mine operators often lack funds to invest in safety equipment and technical upgrades.
Coal mining has been worst affected by accidents, with 1,744 miners dying while working since 1993, according to Vladimir Rossikhin, of the Russian Independent Union of Coal Miners. He said, however, that safety had improved in recent years amid Russia's economic recovery.
Regional authorities said the province will mark Monday as a day of mourning.
HAMILTON, Bermuda - Florence strengthened into a hurricane early Sunday as it approached Bermuda, where residents installed storm shutters and hauled their yachts onto beaches.
Florence became a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
The storm was expected to reach the tiny British territory Monday, according to the hurricane center. But it was too early to tell whether it will make a direct hit.
The storm became a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph and was expected to strengthen further Sunday, the hurricane center said.
At 2 a.m. EDT, the center of Florence was 360 miles south of Bermuda, moving northwest at 13 mph.
Bermuda issued a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning, and the government urged its 65,000 residents to take precautions. Part of Bermuda's volunteer army has been mobilized.
"We are asking residents to please stay home. We are urging the public's cooperation so that emergency vehicles will have free passage on the roads," Derrick Burgess, minister of public safety, said at a news conference. "Also, we are discouraging the public from sightseeing as this puts everyone at risk."
Mr. Blair opened his visit in Jerusalem, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. At a joint news conference, the British Prime Minister said they discussed shoring up the fragile cease-fire in Lebanon and reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
"The majority of people here, I'm sure, want to see what the majority of people in my country want to see, which is a Middle East that is stable, and democratic, with people living side by side in peace. It is very easy to be pessimistic in the light of everything that has happened recently, but I do believe that with good will and the right leadership it can be done," he said.
Mr. Blair also plans to visit the West Bank for talks with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Israeli Prime Minister said he is ready to hold his first summit with Mr. Abbas to discuss the internationally-backed "road map" peace plan. "I remain dedicated to advancing to the political process with the Palestinians according to the road map, starting with implementation of the first phase which calls for the dismantling of the terrorist organizations and their infrastructure," he said.
But Mr. Olmert said there could be no progress until the crisis over a kidnapped Israeli soldier is resolved. The 19-year-old corporal was captured by militants from the ruling Hamas movement more than two months ago, and is being held in the Gaza Strip. "The issue that is our first priority with the Palestinians, naturally, is the immediate release of Corporal Gilad Shalit," he added.
The two leaders also discussed Iran and vowed to prevent that country from acquiring a nuclear bomb. "Our position remains as it's been throughout, which is to make sure that the will of the international community, in respect of Iran's nuclear weapons aspirations, is properly adhered to," he said.
Israel has grown increasingly alarmed about Iran's nuclear program since last October, when the Iranian president threatened to wipe the Jewish state "off the map."
Nigeria's anti-corruption body has made its largest single seizure of illegally acquired assets belonging to a dead electoral official and pastor.
The $55m estate of Timothy Olufemi Akanni came to the attention of the authorities after his two widows rowed about who should inherit it.
It was only after his death in a plane crash last October that it was discovered he had a secret second wife.
The ex-electoral commission director's assets now pass to the state.
Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) made the seizures through an order it obtained from the High Court in the capital, Abuja.
The BBC's Sola Odunfa in Lagos says the forfeited assets include 23 bank accounts in various names; shares in leading Nigerian banks; houses and land in the most sought-after parts of Lagos and Abuja; schools in Abuja and a variety of motor vehicles.
Our correspondent says Mr Akanni, who was a Pentecostal Church pastor in Abuja, was eulogised at his death for being a patriotic and selfless Nigerian.
The posthumous discovery of his second wife and fortune has shocked many of his friends and family.
When the family became divided over the inheritance, the EFFC was informed of Mr Akanni's previously unknown wealth.
After months of investigation the EFCC discovered assets far greater in value than his total legitimate earnings in life.
WASHINGTON - The American Red Cross said money it makes selling blood will help cover the atest in a series of multimillion-dollar government fines.
The Food and Drug Administration ordered the Red Cross on Friday to pay $4.2 million for violating blood-safety laws. The record fine is on top of $5.7 million the Red Cross already has been assessed by the FDA since a court settlement reached in 2003.
The latest fine is for violations that include failing to reject donors who had traveled to malarial areas and allowing blood and related products to be distributed without proper testing, said Margaret Glavin, the FDA's associate commissioner for regulatory affairs.
The FDA stressed it had no evidence of serious health consequences resulting from the violations and that the nation's blood supply remains safe.
The Red Cross provides nearly half the nation's blood supply, selling blood products to health facilities.
The fine stems from Red Cross recalls carried out between 2003 and 2005 that could have been prevented, the FDA said. The recalls involved about 12,000 units of blood and blood products. That number largely explains the size of the fine, Glavin said.
"FDA does not consider the current situation acceptable," Glavin said. "We will continue to work to make sure that the quality system is improved in its design and in its implementation, so these types of problems do not continue to occur."
In a statement, the American Red Cross said its senior management is committed to comply with the 2003 settlement and all applicable federal regulations. It planned to respond to the FDA within 20 days.
Red Cross spokesman Ryland Dodge said it will not use donated money to pay the fine, but instead will rely on operating funds, including revenue from the sale of blood products.b
NEW YORK - They were different men going in different directions — one a visiting Egyptian student on scholarship, the other an ex-cop in a dead-end job as a hotel security guard. But an aviation radio left in a high-rise hotel brought Abdallah Higazy and Ronald Ferry together in an unfortunate footnote to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In his zeal to fight terror, Ferry twisted the truth about the radio — capable of contacting commercial pilots from the ground — and triggered an investigation that needlessly landed Higazy in jail for a month.
Five years later, Higazy, 35, is back in Egypt, where he views his case as a parable about the false suspicions endured by innocent young Arab and Muslim men following the attacks.
"Not all the victims of 9/11 were in the twin towers and Pentagon
he said in a recent interview. "There were other victims, too."
Attempts by The Associated Press to contact Ferry, 53, were unsuccessful. There was no telephone listing for him, and his former attorney said they were out of touch.
Speaking by phone from Cairo, Higazy recalled being thrilled when he arrived in the United States on Aug. 27, 2001, to begin a graduate program in computers. His college temporarily put him up in a room on the 51st floor at the Millennium Hotel, in the shadow of the World Trade Center.
He was there on the morning of Sept. 11 when the planes struck with a force that shook the hotel. During an evacuation, he managed to grab only his student identification and cash. He later found housing in Brooklyn and began school.
Enter Ferry.
The Millennium security guard — who had quit the Newark, N.J., police force because of a drug problem — was assigned in October to inventory items left behind by guests, court papers said. He reported to a supervisor that among the belongings found in a safe in Room 5101 were the aviation radio and an Egyptian passport — Higazy's.
The discovery was troubling to investigators who believed a conspirator could have used the handheld device to coordinate with the hijackers aiming airliners at the twin towers. It was considered "an extremely important item of evidence," one government filing said.
When Higazy was summoned to the hotel in December to retrieve his belongings, the FBI confronted him with the radio.
"I'm sorry, this isn't mine," he told agents.
The FBI brushed aside his denials and arrested him as a material witness. He was sure someone would quickly realize he'd been framed — until he spotted Zacarias Moussaoui inside a jail in lower Manhattan.
The man already known as "20th Hijacker" was lodged in the same maximum-security wing. Being in Moussaoui's company — and being strip-searched, shackled and insulted by guards — was unnerving to a moderate Muslim who had never even read the Koran.
"That's when it really sunk in that I was in a very, very serious situation," he said.
Higazy agreed to a polygraph examination. He stuck to the truth, he said, until an FBI agent made veiled threats against his family in Egypt.
He broke down and responded with wild and contradictory tales: He found the radio in the subway. No, he stole it from the Egyptian military.
Citing his "confession," federal authorities charged him on Jan. 11, 2002, with making false statements. Three days later, a private pilot who was staying one floor below Higazy at the Millennium on Sept. 11, returned to the hotel looking for his aviation radio.
Ferry recanted his story on Jan. 16, court papers said. The same day, with no explanation, a deputy U.S. marshal removed Higazy's shackles and told him, "You're free to go."
About a year later, Higazy sued the hotel and the FBI agent who coerced his false confession for $20 million. He reached an undisclosed settlement with the hotel; a judge later cleared the agent — a ruling that's still being appealed.
Now married and teaching computer courses, Higazy still blames Ferry for "fooling the government." But he also has fond memories of New Yorkers who, after recognizing him from news accounts, greeted him with kind words after he was freed.
"Aren't you the Egyptian man?" he recalled some saying. "We're sorry."
Ferry, who pleaded guilty on Feb. 27, 2002, to lying to the FBI about the radio, served his sentence of weekends in jail for six months, then faded back into obscurity. His motives remain murky as well.
"That was during a time of patriotism," he said at his sentencing, "and I'm very, very sorry for that mistake."
A man who was wrongly accused of being a paedophile was stabbed to death in a brutal and prolonged attack, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court has heard.
Paul Cooper, 42, of Walton Road in Heywood, Greater Manchester, was found at his flat on 18 March.
Neil Read, 23, of Higher Lomax Lane in Heywood, was deemed unfit to plead earlier this week.
On Friday he was ordered to go to Ashworth high security hospital, where he will be held in a psychiatric unit.
He is to be held without limit of time.
Read attacked and killed Mr Cooper after becoming fixated with the idea he had been indecently assaulted by him when he was a child.
Det Ch Insp Jeff McMahon said: "Paul and Read knew each other from years earlier.
"We have never received any allegation that Paul indecently assaulted Read at any time.
"There is no evidence to suggest that Paul was ever involved in any sexual offence.
"He had never been arrested, questioned or convicted of any crime of a sexual nature.
"Neil Read had, over a prolonged period of time, persuaded a number of people in the community that Paul Cooper, and others in the area, were sex offenders. "Many of those he spoke to believed him and this misinformation hampered our investigation in its early stages."
WASHINGTON– The first of 22 individuals involved in a marriage and immigration fraud scheme were arrested today as part of a three-year law enforcement task force operation in the National Capitol area. As described in the government’s affidavit, the defendants are alleged to have arranged marriages between aliens seeking immigration benefits and United States citizens willing to enter into sham marriages in exchange for money.
“This is an important example of the effective cooperation among Department of Homeland Security (DHS) entities and federal, state and local law enforcement partners to maintain the integrity of our national immigration system,” said USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez. “Because they are the first to review the suspect cases, USCIS immigration officers serve on the front lines of our Nation’s security and are actively involved in the detection of fraud and abuse.”
Today’s arrests were a result of the efforts of a task force of federal and local law enforcement agencies including: USCIS, ICE, the ArlingtonCounty (Va.) Police Department, the FairfaxCounty (Va.) Police Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the Departments of State and Commerce. Aliens who participated in this fraud scheme were primarily from Ghana and generally paid large fees, between $2,500 and $6,000, to the defendants who facilitated the sham marriages.
When USCIS employees detect suspect patterns of immigration fraud, they refer the case to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine whether the case should be pursued criminally. If so, ICE conducts a criminal investigation and upon proving fraud, pursues prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s office. If ICE decides not to conduct a criminal investigation, the case is returned to USCIS, who then conducts an administrative investigation through its Office of Fraud Detection and National Security. Should that administrative investigation substantiate the fraud, USCIS will deny the immigration benefit and place the applicant into possible removal proceedings
LIMA, Peru - Peru's "miracle baby" on Thursday underwent a successful second operation to fully separate her legs and allow her to walk unassisted, according to the lead doctor on the eight-person team performing the surgery.
"We have finished with the final part of the thighs. After recovery from this operation, she probably will be able to walk in better conditions," Dr. Luis Rubio said.
Milagros Cerron, whose first name means "miracles" in Spanish, was born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia, or "mermaid syndrome," which left her legs connected from her heels to her groin.
Doctors successfully performed risky surgery in June 2005 to separate her legs to above her knees. Thursday's operation was to separate the remaining four inches of fused tissue just below the groin.
Milagros, now 2 years and 4 months old, waved and blew kisses to well-wishers before her surgery.
Her parents, medical personnel and journalists watched the procedure on a screen in an adjoining room. When the operation ended, Rubio lifted up Milagros to show that her legs were fully separated.
The girl — who is affectionately called "The Little Mermaid" by Peruvians — had developed the ability to stand alone without help and take small assisted steps before Thursday's surgery.
"I expect to be walking the streets of Lima holding her hand in December, which would be a Christmas gift for her family," Rubio said Wednesday night.
According to Rubio, Milagros will need at least 16 more operations in the next decade to reconstruct and repair her digestive, urinary and sexual organs.
He said her own body had corrected one problem — a lack of properly formed sockets for her hip bones that in December appeared to be one of the biggest challenges facing surgeons. Her growing body gradually formed the sockets, without which she would have been unable to maintain stability when standing up, Rubio said.
Rubio has said that Tiffany Yorks, a 17-year-old American, is the only other person known to have undergone successful surgery to correct the rare congenital defect, which occurs in one out of every 70,000 births and is almost always fatal within days of birth.
SAN FRANCISCO - Revelations that Hewlett-Packard Co. officials used questionable tactics in an internal investigation into media leaks have caught the attention of California's attorney general, who's launched his own probe into the computer maker.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer subpoenaed some HP officials Wednesday in a probe he characterized as still being in the "early fact-finding stage."
Lockyer refused to say whether criminal charges would be filed against Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, other directors or the private investigators HP hired to find out who leaked confidential information to the media. He said the state also could charge HP with civil violations and order the company to pay fines.
"I don't have a settled view on whether it was illegal yet, but it certainly was colossally stupid," Lockyer said in a phone interview Wednesday.
HP disclosed in a filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commision that it sought the private telephone records of the company's board members in its leak investigation. Private investigators used the invasive and possibly illegal practice of "pretexting" — posing as someone else to get personal information about that person.
HP said in the SEC filing that the company would decline to nominate one board member, George A. Keyworth II, for re-election because he was a source of the leaks. Keyworth, who has acknowledged leaking information, will be gone by March 2007.
The company also said lawyers hired to review its tactics could not determine if the investigation "complied in all respects with applicable law."
Experts say Dunn, who announced the firing of HP Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, may be the next to go.
"If the chairman thinks this is the way business ought to be conducted, maybe it's time for her to take a sabbatical," said Peter Morici, professor at the Professor Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. "It's arrogant and inappropriate."
Identity thieves use pretexting to steal social security numbers and other confidential information.
In this case, investigators hired by HP called the phone company and impersonated at least one board member to get logs of phone calls to and from his home, said the attorney of a former HP director.
HP said in the filing it would cooperate with the state probe and that no recording or eavesdropping of directors' phone conversations had occurred. Spokesman Ryan Donovan said the company would not provide other further details of the investigation. Dunn declined to comment.
Keyworth's departure comes after a January article on CNET Network Inc.'s News.com, which included a quotation from an anonymous HP source who described a gathering of HP directors at a posh spa in Southern California. Although the source didn't leak high-level strategic detail or say anything inflammatory, the statement angered Dunn, who has been on the board for eight years.
At a board meeting in May, Dunn identified Keyworth as CNET's source, as well as that of other leaks dating to early 2005. The board asked Keyworth, 66, to resign, but he refused.
The investigation and attempted ouster riled another board member, Tom Perkins, 74, who resigned and stormed out of the May 18 meeting.
In the months since his resignation, Perkins — co-founder of Menlo Park-based venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers — complained to other executives and journalists about the investigation's ethical implications.
His attorney, Viet Dinh, a former assistant U.S. attorney general, says he discovered that one of HP's private investigators also obtained the last four digits of Perkins' social security number.
The investigator used that information to open an online account with AT&T, Dinh said. The investigator then called the telephone provider and impersonated Perkins, offering up his social security digits as proof of identity and asking AT&T to send a record of phone calls to and from his house in December 2005 and January 2006 to a free, Web-based e-mail account.
Perkins was unavailable for comment but issued a statement through his lawyer.
"Despite this current disagreement, Tom Perkins has a warm place in his heart for HP and believes in the prospects and performance of HP under the leadership of Mark Hurd," Dinh said.
Dunn, 52, resigned as CEO of Barclays Global Investors in 2002 to battle breast cancer and melanoma, but she's taken an active role as chairwoman of HP, the 11th largest company on the Fortune 500.
She was one of the board members who hired Fiorina in 1999, but Dunn became disillusioned after years of lackluster stock performance and, in December 2004, wrote a four-page report to Fiorina detailing her concerns.
Dunn announced Fiorina's resignation in February 2005, and two months later introduced Hurd, who was favored by Keyworth and Perkins, among others.
She majored in economics and journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked as a freelance journalist before joining Barclays as a temporary secretary.
Dunn had reportedly grown increasingly upset over HP's leaks to journalists.
Bruce Oliver, professor and director of the Center for Business Ethics at Rochester Institute of Technology, said Dunn had the right to seek out the source of leaks because board members often sign nondisclosure agreements. But she crossed an ethical line in going after the home phone logs, Oliver said.
"To engage in some activity where you're hiring someone to do something on the QT where they're misrepresenting themselves, that's over the line of what constitutes ethical behavior," he said.
Others said the scandal could erode morale on HP's Palo Alto campus.
"This sends a message to employees that the company is willing to do just about anything to protect itself," said John W. Dienhart, business ethics professor at Seattle University. "This sends a bad message to existing employees, and it's bad for attracting good employees from outside the organization."
The stunning death of the Crocodile Hunter sent searches soaring. Steve Irwin's untimely passing hit folks hard and they headed to the Search box for answers. We always see heavy search activity when a celebrity dies unexpectedly, but the unusual nature of Irwin's fatal stingray encounter fueled an even more massive search response.
After word came that Irwin's death was captured on film, macabre searches on "steve irwin death video" and "steve irwin death pictures" also began to crop up.
We ran across many other search spikes in our research. Here are a few terms people were searching on in the wake of Irwin's passing...
September 3, 2006 -- An already sad day for the Fire Department turned tragic when a 12-year-old boy crossing a Queens street was killed by a firetruck racing to a call yesterday.
Michael Kandathil was heading from his uncle's house to that of his parents when he apparently slipped on the slick pavement of Hampton Street and was fatally struck, witnesses said.
Shaken firefighters leaped out of their rig and tried to revive the unconscious boy - as his hysterical mom was held back.
"She became pale when she saw her son," said a 35-year-old neighbor. "They didn't even let the mother get to him. She was screaming something in [Hindi]."
The FDNY truck's driver was also devastated, witnesses said.
"He was very sad and crying. The other firefighters had to hug him," said neighbor Gencis Florimon, 50. "He was in very bad shape."
The accident occurred on the same day that firefighters buried one of their own, Lt. Howie Carpluk, killed last Sunday in a Bronx fire that also claimed the life of rookie Michael Reilly.
"Obviously, it was a rough day for all of us already," one fireman said.
Michael was crossing Hampton Street near Whitney Avenue in Elmhurst at about 3 p.m., when he paused near a double-parked car in the middle of the street to look west, officials and witnesses said.
At the same time, Engine 289, with its lights and sirens on, was coming from the east. The driver couldn't see him.
Witnesses said that it looked as if Michael hesitated and that he may have slipped.
"He just went to get the mail, across the street," said his grief-stricken uncle, Joseph Kurian. "It happened in a split second. He had no chance; the impact was too much. He was dead on the spot."
"The kid was crossing the street, and he got scared," Florimon said. "He was trying to back up when the firetruck hit him on the side of the head."
Relatives described Michael as a bright boy who was about to enter the eighth grade at nearby St. Bartholomew's Catholic School.
His schoolmates gathered at the accident scene in front of his home to remember the altar boy, math whiz and basketball player.
"When I found out, I just couldn't believe it," said Chirag Jethanandani, 13. "He was the type that if you needed help, he'd go out of his way to help you."
Officials said that the boy's death was the result of a terrible accident but that they were still investigating.
One cop blamed the double-parked driver.
"You know who's at fault is the person who double-parked the car. That's why we give tickets to double-parked cars - to prevent things like this from happening," the officer said angrily.
FDNY spokesman Farrell Sklerov said, "The matter is under investigation. At this time, our thoughts and prayers are with the family."
Hundreds of additional Italian soldiers are arriving in Lebanon to reinforce the international peacekeeping force in the region.
Some 500 Italian troops arrived Saturday and 500 more are expected today Sunday, raising the total number of U.N. peacekeepers to 3,250.
The U.N. Security Council plans to deploy 15 thousand international troops on the Israeli - Lebanese border to monitor the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Indonesia announced Saturday that it has accepted a U.N. invitation and is planning to send one thousand troops to join the mission.
Israel has opposed help from from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
Indonesian presidential foreign policy advisor Dino Pati Djalal told VOA the U.N. invitation indicates Israel reversed its objections, but Israel has not commented on the announcement.
Also Sunday, Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, told the Itar-tass news agency that Moscow is willing to send army engineers -- but not peacekeeping troops -- to help rebuild Lebanon's infrastructure.
Malaysia and Bangladesh have also offered help, but neither has diplomatic relations with Israel, and their offer has not been formally accepted.
So how does a pious Islamic extremist and potential terrorist pass the time? He watches hardcore porn. Investigators found that at least one of two Islamic extremist planning an attack on the US from Canada was in possession of hardcore pornography.
In Muslim societies the calls for all women to be covered completely and constant diatribes that sexual immorality is a threat to Islamic nations have become commonplace. Yet there is mounting evidence that terrorist extremists commonly view hardcore pornography.
Toronto-based TheStar.com recently reported that two men from the US state of Georgia met in the Canadian city with Islamic extremists to discuss potential terror strikes in the United States, including attacks on oil refineries and military bases, according to recently unsealed US court documents.
The documents say the pair met with at least three people, who are under international surveillance, to plot ways to disable the Global Positioning System, which would disrupt military and commercial communications and air traffic. They also discussed a trip to Pakistan to receive military training at a terrorist-sponsored camp.
US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Michael Scherk, a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Atlanta, says in a sworn affidavit that Eshanul Islam Sadequee, 19, of Roswell, Georgia, and Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, of Atlanta, made the trip to Toronto in March 2005.
Ahmed has been charged with suspicion of giving material support of terrorism and is being held at an undisclosed location. He pleaded not guilty during a brief court appearance in Georgia.
Sadequee is accused of making materially false statements in connection with a terrorist investigation, and he was arrested in Bangladesh, where he told the FBI that he had gone to get married.
Many would give pause to consider what his young bride would think of her husband's penchant for porn, when Islamic societies in almost all cases forbid it.
The US Attorney (federal prosecutor) in Georgia, David Nahmias, said in a statement that the charge against Ahmed is "serious and involves national security".
US Justice Department officials, however, said there was no immediate threat to any strategic US targets.
According to the court document, Sadequee and Ahmed traveled to Toronto from Atlanta on a Greyhound bus, leaving on March 6, 2005, and crossed the border back to the United States on March 12.
Sadequee is accused of lying to federal agents when he was detained at New York's John F Kennedy airport last August, saying he had traveled to Canada the previous January, staying with an aunt he identified as "Manju Auntie", but being unable to name her husband.
FBI agents confiscated computer hard drives and data CDs from their home last month.
Federal agents conducted a search of Sadequee's bags before he left for Bangladesh and found two CD-ROMS concealed in the lining of a suitcase. One disc contained encrypted files that FBI technical experts still cannot decode, the affidavit said, while the other CD contained a bootleg copy of a hardcore pornographic movie. Indeed, there was evidence uncovered by the 9/11 Commission after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US that indicated that ringleader Mohammed Atta and some of his co-conspirators viewed pornography and enjoyed the company of prostitutes, and they were rumored to use cocaine. "Radical Islamic extremists" seem to deviate from pious Muslim beliefs.
"They are also disillusioned in many cases," Nahmias said, and sometimes take up Islam "in the radical form".
"I do believe that when the time comes, a number of these people will attempt to do something quite serious."
He probably meant mass murder, not what too many religious leaders call "serious": enjoying the on-screen antics of Jenna Jameson.
Models pose for a photo to promote the first 2006 Seoul Sex Education Expo at the Millennium Seoul Hilton in Seoul.
The 2006 Seoul Sex Education Expo, which ostensibly seeks to enlighten the public about sexual health, will run Thursday to Sunday at the SETEC in Daechidong, Seoul.
The 2006 Seoul Sexpo will feature seminars on sex, medical consultations, exhibitions of sex toys and accessories, lingerie fashion show, strip shows, a nude photo zone, kissing competitions and other events that provide visitors with the opportunity to experience most of what the adult industry has to offer, the sponsors say.
For the expo, 11 famous nude models including Penthouse Pets and Hustler models have come to Korea, and met the press at a promotional event on Tuesday. The original Sexpo has been held in Australia for 10 years now as an event for the adult industry to exhibit itself, and has also now spread to Singapore and other countries.
The Seoul Sexpo, which has the domestic rights, says it hopes to "provide accurate information about sex, foster a more open approach towards sex, and search for a means of revitalizing the flagging domestic adult industry." Critics say the event is just a pretext to flog pornography. Those over 19 years of age may attend for W15,000 (US$1=W961).
The nude photo zone, where entrants can admire nudes from the leading adult magazines and even take pictures with glamour models, will cost an additional W20,000. "Sex shouldn't be handled in a secretive, closed-off manner any more," the organizers say, adding the expo aims to anchor a "healthy sex culture." They appealed to the public to approach it with an open mind.
TEHRAN (Reuters) - A Canadian-Iranian writer freed after four months in an Iranian jail for allegedly endangering state security was quoted by an Iranian news agency on Thursday as saying he had been duped into aiding U.S. organisations.
"I used to write articles about Iran bband the Middle East in some Web sites which I was not aware were linked to intelligence services," Ramin Jahanbegloo, 46, told Iran's student news agency ISNA shortly after his release on Wednesday.
"While in prison, I reached the conclusion that the American organisations involved me in an affair which it was not my intention to get involved in," ISNA quoted him as saying.
He was not available for comment on Thursday. Several dissidents have in the past made apparent confessions to Iranian media during or after their detention.
Jahanbegloo was released from Iran's notorious Evin prison on Wednesday. He was arrested at the end of April for having contacts with foreigners and undermining state security.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has wbarned against a "velvet revolution," a supposed U.S. plot to use intellectuals and others inside the country to bring about "regime change."
A senior judiciary official was quoted as saying this month that Jahanbegloo had confessed to trying to undermine the Islamic Republic's system of clerical rule and had apologized.
"I have accepted the charge of acting against national security ... but I did not know my activities were endangering state security," Jahanbegloo told ISNA.
Jahanbegloo, author of some 20 books, has lectured on democracy in Iran and how Tehran can engage with the West. He has written on the importance of acknowledging the Holocaust, which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hasb
ISNA quoted Jahanbegloo as saying many Iranian intellectuals were in danger of being tricked into "acting against national security" by "a network that was active overseas."
Jahanbegloo's case strained Iran's relations with Canada, which have been icy since Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died in detention in Iran in 2003 after being arrested for photographing Evin prison.
Western diplomats said Jahanbegloo's detention was aimed abt intimidating and silencing critics.
The European Union, which had criticized Jahanbegloo's treatment, welcomed his release and urged Iran to free "all human rights defenders."
"The Presidency expects that Professor Jahanbegloo can continue his personal life and exercise his profession without any harassment," said a statement by Finland, current holder of the European Union's rotating presidency.
Jahanbegloo said he was not put under pressure to speak.
"The first month (in detention) was very difficult for me," he told ISNA. Then for three months I was in a solitary cell, with a television ... I was not under physical and psychological pressure. But I would not wish anyone to experience the same thing."
"Why was I attracted by such organisations? Why did I want to get scholarships? As an intellectual, when you can't even teach at (an Iranian) university, then you become attracted by such offers," he said.
SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean sex trade show promised foreign women in steamy underwear, striptease acts and sex seminars but had to cancel the performances after losing its lingerie models to immigration laws, organizers said on Thursday. The 2006 Seoul Sex Education Expo, dubbed Sexpo, opened on Thursday, however, with plenty of sex toys, lotions and audiovisual material.
"Immigration officials warned us if the models performed without having obtained the appropriate visa, they could be subject to deportation," a Sexpo official said.
An immigration official said models from places such as Australia were planning to enter the country on tourist visas, but they needed performance visas.
The event, which runs through Sunday, had been heavily advertised.
Several male visitors were angry about seeing so many inflatable plastic women on display and no real ones.
"I came here for a show and all I have is this leaflet about sex toys. What's going on here?" said one man in his mid-60s who asked not to be identified.
Sexpo has been held in other parts of Asia but civic groups in South Korea had pressed authorities to close the show on the grounds that it was offensive.
South Korea, however, already has a large and vibrant sex industry.
Associated Press Writers Iran defied a U.N. deadline Thursday to stop enriching uranium, opening the door for sanctions, but U.S. and other officials said no action would be sought before a key European diplomat meets with Tehran's atomic chief next week to seek a compromise. ran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, lashed out at the United States, calling it "tyrannical" and insisting Tehran would not be "bullied" into giving up the right to use nuclear technology. Other Iranian officials said the country could withstand any punishment.
"We must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," Bush said in a speech in Salt Lake City. He said Washington hoped for a diplomatic solution, but insisted "it is time for Iran to make a choice" whether to cooperate with the United Nation John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the Security Council would wait to consider possible actions until after the European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, met with Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, sometime in the middle of next week.
"We're certainly ready to proceed here in New York when we're given the instructions to do so," Bolton said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also was expected to raise the issue during a visit to Tehran this weekend.
Midnight Thursday — the last day of the Security Council deadline — passed with no change in the Iranian position.
The formal trigger for possible sanctions was provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency based in Vienna, Austria.
In a report Thursday, the U.N. agency confirmed Tehran had not halted uranium enrichment as demanded by the Security Council and said three years of IAEA probing had been unable to confirm "the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program" because of lack of cooperation from Tehran.
Iran denies it is trying to acquire atomic weapons in violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, with the sole aim of producing electricity with nuclear reactors.
The Security Council voted July 31 to impose the Thursday deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and asked the IAEA to report on Tehran's compliance, dangling the threat of sanctions if Iran refused.
Still, with permanent council members Russia and China opposed to quick and harsh penalties, the council appeared ready to delay such action. Senior U.N. diplomats told The Associated Press that Iran had agreed to meet with European negotiators to try to find a compromise.
Confirming the plans, Bolton said the Security Council would wait to consider any action until after European Union envoy Javier Solana met with Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, sometime next week.
An official from one nation on the council said the meeting was tentatively set for Tuesday in Berlin. The official said senior officials from the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany would meet in the German capital the following day. Those six nations offered rewards to Iran in June if it gave up enrichment — but warned of U.N. sanctions if it didn't.
Bolton told the AP that while Washington "has extensive thoughts on what a possible U.N. resolution would look like, such discussion will await the outcome of the Solana meeting with Iran."
Still, he said the IAEA report added further weight to suspicions Iran is "engaged in activities that are only consistent with a weapons program."
Bolton declined to specify what sanctions the U.S. might seek. But U.S. and European diplomats have said they are focusing on low-level punishment at first to win backing from Russia and China. Proposals include travel bans on Iranian officials or a ban on the sale of dual-use technology to Iran.
More extreme sanctions would be a freeze on Iranian assets or a broader trade ban, but those would likely be opposed by Russia, China and perhaps others, particularly since it could cut off badly needed oil exports from Iran.
On Friday, Russia said it "regrets" Iran's decision not to halt uranium enrichment by the deadline, Russian news agencies reported. The response underscored Russia's growing impatience with Iran, which is building an atomic power plant with Moscow's help.
In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi shrugged off the possibility of sanctions, telling state-run television that Iran "will find a way to avoid pressure eventually."
Ahmadinejad denounced the United States, accusing it of trying to impose its will on Iran.
"They claim to be supporting freedom but they support the most tyrannical governments in the world to pursue their own interests," he told a crowd of thousands in the northwestern town of Orumiyeh.
"The Iranian nation will not succumb to bullying, invasion and the violation of its rights," Ahmadinejad said.
While stating "Iran has not suspended its enrichment activities," the restricted IAEA report, obtained by AP, did not specifically say Iran was carrying out enrichment Thursday. It said only that Tehran started work on a new batch Aug. 24.
But a senior official close to the agency said Iran's pilot centrifuge plant was processing small quantities of uranium gas for enrichment as late as Tuesday, the last day IAEA inspectors reported back to headquarters on Tehran's nuclear program.
Iran says it wants to develop a full-scale enrichment program to produce reactor fuel, but there is growing suspicion the oil-rich country wants to use enrichment to create fissile material for nuclear warheads.
The rest of the IAEA's report essentially documented a protracted stalemate between agency inspectors trying to determine if Tehran is seeking to make weapons and Iranian officials who have repeatedly refused to provide information.
While the findings on enrichment were expected, they were important because they provided the formal trigger needed for the Security Council to take up sanctions.
IAEA officials said the six-page report was hand-carried to the council chambers at the same time it was posted on the agency's intranet site for the 35 nations on the IAEA's board of governors.
Other key findings in the report from IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei:
• New findings of minute particles of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian technical university implicated in possible military work, although the report did not specify whether the level was weapons-grade.
• A decision by the Iranians to cut off IAEA access to suspicious diagrams apparently showing how to mold fissile material into the shape of a warhead and to destroy notes taken on the document by agency inspectors.
• The temporary barring of U.N. inspectors from an underground facility being built to house tens of thousands of centrifuges, the backbone of Iran's future enrichment program.
• Protracted delays in granting multiple entry visas to IAEA inspectors.
U.N. officials told AP that even Olli Heinonen, deputy IAEA director-general in charge of the Iran investigation, was left dangling. In an unprecedented move, Iranian officials initially issued him only a one-month visa before relenting and giving him the usual one-year entry pass Wednesday, a day before the report was released.
___
Nasser Karimi reported from Tehran and George Jahn from Vienna. Associated Press writers Lee Keath in Cairo, Egypt, and Nick Wadhams at the United Nations contributed to this report
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is due to meet Friday with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in hopes of shoring up an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.
Mr. Annan is expected to push Mr. Assad to end Syria's support for Hezbollah. Syria is suspected of funneling arms to the terrorist group.
On Thursday, the U.N. chief met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mualem in Damascus.
During the talks, Syria expressed support for the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and called for Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon.b
The official Syrian news agency said Mualem also told Mr. Annan the U.N. should work for a comprehensive Middle East peace. Syria wants a peace deal that would restore the Israeli occupied Golan Heights to Syria.
Mr. Annan is visiting Syria as part of a Middle East tour. He is also expected to travel to Iran, another major supporter of Hezbollah.
Israel has said it will not withdraw from Lebanon until the U.N. ceasefire is fully implemented and international troops are able to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah.
Israel also insists on the release of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah on July 12.
Mr. Annan says Israel should withdraw from Lebanon once five thousand international troops are deployed in southern Lebanon. Up to one thousand Italian soldiers are due Saturday in Lebanon. France says its troops will leave for Lebanon in a few days.
Some two years ago I began posting articles I read on the internet and found to be interesting to my various blogs, but lately I started something new on www.skupping.com
