Weekly Round Up: 650,000 Iraqi Dead, General Says Get Out Of Iraq And UN undecided On North Korea

It’s been another crazy week in the world of politics. The media has been dominated by the 650,000 Iraqi dead figures published by the Johns Hopkins University, also the UK Army Chief Says British Troops Should Be Pulled Out Of Iraq and the United Nations pondering on what to do with North Korea…

All the other news from around the world…

North America
Analysis: U.S. influence on Iraq limited
The Bush administration is bumping up against the limits of military and political power to influence what happens next in Iraq, four years into an increasingly unpopular war that has not gone as planned.

As U.S. officials now acknowledge, the cycle of sectarian killings poses a greater threat than does al-Qaida or the anti-American insurgency.

"The security situation is not one that can be tolerated and it is not one that is being helped by political inaction," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week at the start of a two-day trip to Iraq.

The day Rice arrived, a leading Republican and Bush loyalist offered a bleak assessment of Iraq. Sen John Warner, R-Va., said Iraq is "drifting sideways" and that the U.S. military has done what it could.

Israel war crime charge roils Canada politics
The leading candidate to head the Liberal Party was defiant on Friday after opening a political can of worms with the charge that Israel committed war crimes during its Lebanon campaign this summer.

Michael Ignatieff, a human rights expert and a former Harvard don, said at the weekend that Israel committed a war crime when it bombarded the Lebanese village of Qana in July.

He said on Friday that it would be up to international bodies to determine whether Israel had committed war crimes at Qana, although he also said he thought both sides in the conflict were guilty of crimes against civilians.

Ignatieff, who stressed his friendship for Israel and said he would travel there soon, said it was disgraceful for Harper to suggest the Liberals were anti-Israeli.

Canada formally protests to U.S. over deported man
Canada will formally protest to the United States over the case of a Canadian man deported to Syria by U.S. agents after he was accused of being connected with terrorist activity, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told President Bush.

Software engineer Maher Arar was arrested in New York in September 2002 and deported to Syria, where he says he was repeatedly tortured. He was released a year later.

In a telephone conversation, Bush expressed concerns about the case and said he would reply to the letter, said Harper to reporters.

Ottawa's official inquiry into the affair put much of the blame on Canadian police, who wrongly told U.S. border agents that Arar was an Islamic extremist. But inquiry head Justice Dennis O'Connor also urged Ottawa to formally protest to both Syria and the United States over the way they had treated Arar, a Canadian citizen who was born in Syria.

$1,000,000,000,000: the cost of capping greenhouse gas emissions
The cost of curbing the soaring emissions of harmful gases that are blamed for causing global warming has been estimated at $1 trillion by a major study of the cost of climate change.

The report, by PricewaterhouseCoopers, lays bare the potential damage to the environment of the industrial revolution in China and India. It puts a price of $1 trillion (£526bn) on the cost of sorting out the problem spread over the next generation.

Turbo-charged growth in emerging economies is helping to drag billions of people out of poverty across Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe. But according to PwC, nations that have done most to cause the problem must take more drastic action to reduce their environmental impact.

Lawsuit against AOL threatens search engine cookie store
AOL is being sued by three American users after details of their internet searches were made available by the US web firm this year. The lawsuit also demands that the company stop maintaining records of what users are looking for on the internet, a move which could hamper the development of the burgeoning search-engine industry.

In July AOL, which is owned by the media conglomerate Time Warner, posted the search requests of 658,000 AOL subscribers, made between March and May 2006, on a research website. The intention was to allow academics to get a better understanding of what was being looked for and how the search results were used. The data was, however, quickly plastered all over the internet, raising fears that it could be used by spammers and internet scam artists. When AOL, realised how the information was being used it removed the database from its website but it was too late.

Three AOL users have launched a class action lawsuit in a California court alleging that the web portal violated laws governing electronic communications and privacy by releasing the data. They are calling for compensation of at least $1,000 (£530) a member. Their lawyers in San Francisco are looking for other AOL users who believe their rights have been infringed, to join the action. If they do, AOL could be facing a $658m lawsuit.

Cola linked to weak bones
According to the study, in which more than 2500 adults were examined by Dr Katherine L Tucker and colleagues of Tufts University in Boston, it was found that women who consumed cola daily had lower bone mineral density [BMD] in their hips than those who drank less than one serving of cola a month.

The authors of the report wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: "Because BMD is strongly linked with fracture risk, and because cola is a popular beverage, this is of considerable public health importance."

Studies in teen girls have tied heavy soft drink consumption to fractures and lower BMD, the researchers note, but it is not clear if this is because they're drinking less milk, or if it is due to any harmful effects of soda itself. Cola consumption had no effect on BMD in men.

South America
12 die in Argentine school bus crash
A bus carrying high school students back from a charity mission collided head-on with a truck on a rural highway in Argentina, leaving at least 12 dead and 30 others injured, authorities said Monday.

The accident occurred late Sunday as the students were returning to the capital from a trip to take donations to a rural school in an impoverished part of this American country.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Tearful students and anguished parents gathered at the high school in Buenos Aires early Monday as they awaited word on the victims and local television stations interrupted regular programming with reports on the collision.

Bus plunges off Guatemala cliff; 34 dead
An overcrowded passenger bus driving in heavy rain plunged off a cliff in northern Guatemala, killing at least 34 people, officials said Monday.

The bus was driving on a curvy highway Sunday night in the city of Chiantla, 85 miles northwest of the capital Guatemala City when it crashed, officials said.

"The bodies were scattered, some lying in the grass, others on rocks, and some in the river that runs through the valley," said rescue worker Walter Gomez, who added that rescuers had to use axes to chop through the roof of the bus to reach victims.

Six people were pulled alive from the wreckage, but one died on the way to the hospital.

Survivors said the bus, with an estimated capacity of 45 to 50 passengers, was overcrowded at the time of the crash. Firefighters estimated the bus plunged about 330 feet into a valley.

Brazil official: U.S. pilots irresponsible
Brazil's defense minister said two American pilots were "irresponsible" in claiming they were at the correct altitude when their plane collided with a Gol airlines Boeing 737-800 and apparently caused it to crash, killing all 154 people.

Authorities are investigating why the pilots were flying the Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet at 37,000 feet, an altitude reserved for planes going in the opposite direction at the time of the crash - Brazil's worst air disaster.

"It was a frivolous statement ... It was irresponsible," Waldir Pires said of the pilots' claim. "The flight plan says that the (planes) should fly on even-number levels."

On an interview with Globo TV aired Tuesday, Pires balked at any suggestion that errors by Brazilian air traffic controllers led to the crash.

Peron remains to be put in new mausoleum
The remains of former Argentine political strongman Juan Domingo Peron are to be reburied in a new mausoleum during a ceremony next week, organizers said Tuesday.

Leaders of the Peronist movement the populist politician founded 61 years ago will attend the ceremony.

The move of Peron's remains from a Buenos Aires cemetery to suburban San Vicente comes amid the run-up to next year's presidential election - a traditional time for reinvoking the name and party ideals of the man who dominated Argentine political life of the last century.
Brief Info:
- Peron was an army colonel jailed in 1945 after conspiring in a coup. Protests by trade unionists forced the government to release him and he went on to win the first of three elections in February 1946.
- Peron radically reshaped Argentina economic and political life, particularly in early years with his charismatic first wife, Eva "Evita" Peron, at his side. He died in 1974 and his remains were laid to rest in the Chacarita cemetery in Buenos Aires.
- During his years as undisputed political leader of Argentina, Peron commanded wide popular and union support, including the backing of the poor "shirtless ones" - or "descamisados."
- Peron won re-election in 1951, but he was overthrown by the military in 1955 after growing economic trouble. He spent 18 years in exile before returning from Spain in 1973 and winning election as president.
- Upon his death in 1974, second wife Isabel Peron - his vice president - governed fitfully until her ouster in a 1976 coup.

Europe
Slain reporter was writing torture story
Anna Politkovskaya, famed for her unsparing coverage of abuses against civilians in Chechnya in the outspoken newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was found dead last Saturday in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building. She had two gunshot wounds - one to the head.

Politkovskaya, 48, had collected witness accounts and photos of tortured bodies and the article had been due for publication Monday, her newspaper's editors said.

"We never got the article, but she had evidence about these (abducted) people and there were photographs," Novaya Gazeta's deputy editor, Vitaly Yerushensky, told Ekho Moskvy radio.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States was shocked and profoundly saddened by the murder of a journalist who devoted much of her career to "shining a light on human rights abuses and other atrocities of the war in Chechnya" and the plight of Chechen refugees.

Britain tried to curb U.S. on Iraq
The British government tried to rein in U.S. policy in Iraq from the outset of the March 2003 invasion but found itself powerless to do so, a former cabinet minister was quoted on Saturday as saying.

David Blunkett, Home Secretary at the time of the invasion, told newspapers that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could not diverted from their goal of dismantling the Iraqi Ba'athist government system.

"The issue was: 'What the hell do you do about it?' All we could do as a nation of 60 million off the coast of mainland Europe was to seek to influence the most powerful nation in the world," he said in interviews to publicise his new diaries.

"We did seek to influence them, but we were not in charge, so you cannot say that if only the government recognised what needed to be done, it would all have been different. The government did recognise the problem," he added.

America flouted law by flying bombs to Israel through Britain
The Crown Office in Scotland is considering prosecutions over two flights carrying consignments of laser-guided bombs which landed at Prestwick, near Glasgow, in July.

At the time, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett savaged the US after learning it was secretly using Britain as a staging-post to resupply the Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds which killed hundreds of civilians.

But it has only now emerged that moving the weapons through Britain was a blatant breach of international aviation laws.

The Scottish authorities will now decide whether to mount a legal case that could lead to heavy fines and a possible ban on the airline involved landing in Britain. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that an investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) revealed that the aircraft missions did not have appropriate clearance.

Lithuania has expelled a Russian diplomat suspected of espionage
The Vilnius-based diplomat was ordered to leave the Baltic country for seeking to influence Lithuania's determination to support Georgia in its conflict with Moscow, news agencies said.

The Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy in Vilnius declined to comment on the report. Relations between Russia and Lithuania have been strained since the Baltic country regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over the past seven years there have been several incidents of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions. Three Russian diplomats were deported from Lithuania in 2004 for attempting to gather information about the impeachment of ex-President Rolandas Paksas. Mr Paksas was impeached by Parliament in 2003.

Turkish army accuses Armenia, tensions rise
Turkey's military said on Friday Armenian soldiers fired into its territory two days ago amid an escalation in tensions after France's passage of a law making it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide by Ottoman Turks.

The powerful General Staff called on the Foreign Ministry to investigate the incident on the border on October 11, which it said caused no injuries or material damage.

"Turkish soldiers came under harassing fire from Armenian territories on the Turkey-Armenia border on October 11, 2006," the Turkish General Staff said in a statement.

Turkey closed its border with the ex-Soviet republic of Armenia in 1993 to protest against Yerevan's occupation of territory inside Azerbaijan, a Turkic-speaking ally of Ankara. Ties have also been strained by claims by Armenia that some 1.5 million of its people suffered genocide from 1915 to 1923 on Ottoman territory.

Turkey denies any genocide, saying the Armenians were victims of a partisan war that also claimed many Muslim Turkish lives. Turkey accuses Armenians of carrying out massacres while siding with invading Russian troops.

The military's statement comes a day after France's lower house of parliament approved a law making it a crime to deny the genocide. France is home to Europe's largest Armenian diaspora.

Britain, Ireland to push compromise plan
Britain and Ireland announced Thursday they would present a plan to Northern Ireland's rival leaders spelling out how to resurrect a Catholic-Protestant administration as the province's peace deal intended.

The two governments said, barring a breakthrough, they would publish their blueprint for compromise at the end of three days of multi-party negotiations at a luxury hotel outside this seaside university town.

The British and Irish prime ministers, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, invited delegations from seven Northern Ireland parties most crucially Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists and Gerry Adams' Sinn Fein to Scotland in hopes of forging an agreement to revive power-sharing, the central aim of the Good Friday peace pact of 1998

Pope decision on 'limbo' delayed for a year
A draft document drawn up for the Pope's approval declaring that limbo was "no longer essential or even necessary" and could be "abandoned without causing problems of faith" has not been finalised. It will not be presented to the pontiff until 2007.

The Pope was expected to embrace the findings when marking the end of a Vatican conference of international theologians on the subject, but he let the occasion pass.

Catholics regard limbo as the home in the afterlife of the souls of unbaptised children. The Pope has himself long argued that limbo was only a "theological hypothesis" and should be dropped. There was no explanation of the need for further discussion.

Vatican theologians denied suggestions that the proposed change was intended to prevent people in areas with high infant mortality turning to Islam, which holds that the souls of all babies who die - including those stillborn - go to Paradise.

Traditional marriage vows 'could be used to justify wife beating'
The traditional marriage vows in which the bride promises to "obey" her husband could be used by men to justify domestic violence, a Church of England report said.

The report, backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, accused the Church of failing at "many points" to prevent abuse.

The report said that clergy preparing couples for marriage should stress that men and women are of equal worth, and that the use of the word "obey" could be seen as an outdated view of the status of women.

The report said that the Church had, intentionally or unintentionally, reinforced abuse, failed to challenge abusers and intensified the suffering of survivors, often through "misguided" or distorted versions of Christian belief.

Victims could often see themselves as deserving abuse and could be persuaded, in a spirit of "self-denial", to forgive the perpetrator and not take action against them. The report, entitled Responding to Domestic Abuse, Guidelines for Pastoral Responsibility, encourages churches to become places of safety for survivors of domestic abuse. The origin of the wedding vows used in Anglican services can be traced back to the Book of Common Prayer, as authorised by Henry VIII. The Church now offers an alternative version, omitting the word "obey"

Now air passengers get tagged
Airline passengers could soon be tagged and monitored in an effort to increase airport security. Electronic wristbands would be used to keep tabs on suspicious individuals as well as track down lost children or remind passengers to get to their departure gates on time.

A trial is planned this year in Hungary. If successful, the tags could be rolled out internationally within two years.

The project, codenamed Optag, is spearheaded by University College London, where a new Centre for Security and Crime has been established. Under the scheme, wearing a tag would be compulsory for every passenger entering an airport.

The tags would contain pre-recorded passenger information, not address details or other personal information. Prof Paul Brennan, of UCL, admitted the tags would not stop 'determined terrorists'.

10 die as 2 trains collide in France
A passenger train collided with an oncoming freight train in northeastern France Wednesday, killing 10 people and injuring at least 10 others, authorities said.

The passenger train was traveling from Luxembourg to the French city of Nancy, said Philippe Mirville, a spokesman for French rail operator SNCF.

The line the passenger train was on was being repaired, so it switched onto a second track, hitting the oncoming freight train at Zoufftgen, about 12 miles south of Luxembourg, just before noon, Mirville said.

Nine of those killed were aboard the passenger train, said authorities for the Lorraine region of northeastern France.

More than 100 rescue workers were at or heading to the crash site to set up a mobile hospital, a local fire chief, Samuel Gesret, told France-2 television

Sex traffic: how we have failed rescued women
Tony Blair is to be criticised by a powerful parliamentary committee for failing to allow trafficked women rescued from the sex trade to stay in Britain long enough to recover from their ordeal.

An inquiry by the Joint Committee on Human Rights will blame Mr Blair for failing to sign a European convention that allows trafficked women in the sex trade to remain in the country for a month for treatment and support.

The committee, made up of MPs and peers from all parties, is expected to say that women brought to the UK illegally to work in the sex trade should be regarded as victims, not unwanted immigrants.

In Italy, where the European convention has been signed and trafficked women are not automatically returned to their home countries, there has been no increase in illegal immigration. The inquiry by the committee found that trafficked women in Italy were not subjected to as much brutality as in countries such as Britain where the convention had not been signed.

France to impose smoking ban
France said on Sunday it will ban smoking in most public places from next February and in bars, restaurants, hotels and night clubs 11 months later.

"We have decided to ban smoking in public places from February 1, 2007," Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told RTL radio and LCI television.

The familiar "bar-tabacs," special bars that sell tobacco, night clubs and other such places would have until January 1, 2008 at the latest to comply with the rules, he said.

Public places include stations, museums, government offices and shops but the ban will not extend to the streets or private places such as houses or hotel rooms.

Villepin said the state would provide for one-third of the costs of anti-smoking treatments, such as patches. "That would represent the first month of treatment," he said.

Ireland imposed the world's first nationwide public smoking ban in 2004. Italy, Sweden, Scotland, Norway and Spain have followed suit to varying degrees.

Belgium, Britain, Northern Ireland and Portugal are expected to put new tighter rules in place next year.

Middle East
Foreign Ministry slams envoy's comments about 'yellow race'
The Foreign Ministry on Friday condemned remarks by the Israeli ambassador to Australia in which he told Haaretz that the two countries are white sisters amid "the yellow race" of Asia.

"If the article is accurate, this is a grave and unacceptable remark," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"Israel and Australia are like sisters in Asia," Tamir said in an interview with Haaretz during a visit to Israel this week. "We are in Asia without the characteristics of Asians. We don't have yellow skin and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel are not - we are basically the white race. We are on the western side of Asia and they are on the southeastern side."

A career diplomat who served in Tokyo, Washington, Strasbourg and as ambassador in Finland, Tamir is also Israel's non-resident ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Fiji and New Zealand, where Israel closed its embassy in 2002, also for budgetary reasons.

Though in Australia since January 2005, Tamir was only accredited in New Zealand a year ago, following the resumption of normal diplomatic relations between the two countries after Israel extended a formal apology for its role in the "passport affair." In 2004 two alleged Mossad agents were apprehended and jailed after attempting to obtain a New Zealand passport by fraudulent means.

Lebanese army confiscates weapons from Hezbollah in south
The Lebanese army has confiscated illegitimate weapons from Hezbollah guerillas in southern Lebanon, Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr said Tuesday.

Murr said the seizure of arms south of the Litani River was in line with Security Council resolution 1701, which brought about the United Nations-brokered cease-fire that ended the 34-day war between the Hezbollah guerilla organization in Lebanon and Israel.

"This is a natural step. It is our obligation to confiscate weapons," said Murr. "The Lebanese army is deployed in South Lebanon in order to protect the border and to prevent any military body aside from our forces from operating there," he added.

Murr said Hezbollah has been cooperating with the Lebanese forces and has refrained from any armed demonstrations.

World Islamic body condemns Danish cartoons
The 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on Monday condemned a new round of Danish cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad, saying the values of tolerance were shrinking in Europe.

Danish state TV on Friday broadcast amateur video footage showing members of the anti-immigrant Danish Peoples' Party (DPP) at a summer camp in August, drinking, singing and taking part in a competition to draw images mocking the Prophet.

"Muslims have noted with concern that the values of tolerance are eroding and there is now shrinking space for others' religious, social and cultural values in the West," said a statement sent to Reuters by the Jeddah-based OIC, the world's largest Islamic grouping.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has denounced the DPP members for drawing the humiliating cartoons. Senior DPP members refused to apologize and party leader Pia Kjaersgaard criticized media for airing the footage of what she called a private party.

Two youths seen in the clips were reported in hiding and the Foreign Ministry warned Danes against traveling to much of the Middle East. The footage had been removed from the two Web sites that had posted it.

U.S. Group Reaches Deal to Provide Laptops to All Libyan Schoolchildren
The government of Libya reached an agreement on Tuesday with One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit United States group developing an inexpensive, educational laptop computer, with the goal of supplying machines to all 1.2 million Libyan schoolchildren by June 2008.

The project, which is intended to supply computers broadly to children in developing nations, was conceived in 2005 by a computer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nicholas Negroponte. His goal is to design a wireless-connected laptop that will cost about $100 after the machines go into mass production next year.

To date, Mr. Negroponte, the brother of the United States intelligence director, John D. Negroponte, has reached tentative purchase agreements with Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria and Thailand, and has struck a manufacturing deal with Quanta Computer Inc., a Taiwanese computer maker.

The idea appealed to the Libyan leader, according to Mr. Negroponte, because it fit into his political agenda of creating a more open Libya and becoming an African leader. The two men also discussed the possibility of Libya's financing the purchase of laptops for a group of poorer African nations like Chad, Niger and Rwanda.

Asia
UN elects South Korea's Ban Ki-Moon as UN chief
The UN General Assembly formally elected South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon as the world body's eighth secretary general, to succeed Kofi Annan when he steps down in December.

Ban, a 62-year-old career diplomat, will become the first Asian UN chief since U Thant of Burma led the world body from 1961 to 1971.

The 192-member assembly's vote was a mere formality after the powerful 15-member UN Security Council recommended Ban as Annan's successor on Monday, an event overshadowed by North Korea's declared nuclear test.

Ban was the only remaining candidate in the race for the coveted, high-profile job after six other contenders withdrew.

Other contenders for the job were Indian diplomat Shashi Tharoor, the UN undersecretary general for communications and public information; Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga; former Thai deputy prime minister Surakiart Sathirathai; Jordan's UN ambassador Prince Zeid al-Hussein; Sri Lankan diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala; and Afghanistan's former finance minister Ashraf Ghani.

Bangladesh banker wins Nobel Peace Prize
Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their pioneering use of tiny, seemingly insignificant loans, microcredit - to lift millions out of poverty.

Through Yunus's efforts and those of the bank he founded, poor people around the world, especially women, have been able to buy cows, a few chickens or the cell phone they desperately needed to get ahead.

The 65-year-old economist said he would use part of his share of the $1.4 million award money to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor. The rest would go toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh, he said. Since its start the bank has given out £3.07 billion, with a recovery rate of 98.85 per cent.

Bangladesh to probe Tesco child labour allegations
Bangladeshi textile manufacturers have pledged to investigate child labour allegations after a British television network showed children making clothes for supermarket giant Tesco.

Channel 4 News had secretly filmed children as young as 12 it said were working at four factories that supply the British supermarket giant.

S.M. Fazlul Hoque, president of the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), annnounced an immediate investigation but said child labour had been phased out in recent years due to pressure from Western buyers.

For the past three years the trade group has employed its own inspection teams to conduct unannounced visits to members' factories. Any employer found to be employing workers under the age of 18 faces an on-the-spot fine of up to 50,000 taka (740 dollars).

NATO chief warns of Afghan tipping point
NATO's top commander in Afghanistan said Sunday the country was at a tipping point and warned Afghans would likely switch their allegiance to resurgent Taliban militants if there are no visible improvements in people's lives in the next six months.

Gen. David Richards, a British officer who commands NATO's 32,000 troops here, warned in an interview with The Associated Press that if life doesn't get better over the winter, most Afghans could switch sides.

"They will say, 'We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting,'" Richards said.

Japan bans North Korean imports
Saying the country was "in gravest danger," Japan ordered a total ban on North Korean imports late Wednesday and declared that ships from the impoverished nation were prohibited from entering Japanese ports as punishment for its apparent nuclear test.

North Korean nationals are also prohibited from entering Japan, with limited exceptions, the Cabinet Office said in a statement released after an emergency security meeting.

Twenty-four North Korea-registered trade ships were moored at Japanese ports as of Wednesday afternoon, according to public broadcaster NHK. Local traders were already refusing to unload shipments to protest the alleged test, and the boats were expected to be ordered out, NHK said.

"Japan is in gravest danger, if we consider that North Korea has advanced both its missile and nuclear capabilities," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters following the meeting.

China admits its guards killed nun
CHINA confirmed yesterday that its border guards had shot dead a refugee, believed to be a nun, trying to cross the border from Tibet into Nepal, but said the soldiers acted in self defence.

Such an official confirmation is rare. The government in the restive region of Tibet may have felt forced to respond after dozens of foreign mountaineers, described watching from their Himalayan base camp as Chinese border guards opened fire on the group of fleeing Tibetans on September 30.

The official Xinhua news agency said: A small squad of Chinese frontier soldiers found the stowaways and tried to persuade them to go back to their home. But the stowaways refused and attacked the soldiers.

The border guards were then forced to defend themselves and opened fire, injuring two of the group, it said. The official account said one person died later in hospital of complications from a shortage of oxygen while the other was receiving treatment.

It did not clarify why armed border guards, who are often equipped with semi-automatic rifles, would need to shoot to defend themselves in a country where firearms are banned among civilians. The International Campaign for Tibet said the victim was a nun in her mid-twenties from central Tibet who was among a group of 73 refugees fleeing via Nepal to India.

China and India 'top bribe list'
Firms from China and India are most willing to pay bribes abroad to do business, a survey suggests.

Anti-corruption group Transparency International (TI) put the two countries at the top of its Bribe Payers' Index of 30 exporting nations.

French and Italian firms were named as the worst culprits for paying bribes in low-income countries. TI said its survey showed that efforts to introduce anti-corruption laws had yet to slow the problem.

"It is hypocritical that OECD-based companies continue to bribe across the globe, while their governments pay lip-service to enforcing the law," said TI chief executive David Nussbaum. "The enforcement record on international anti-bribery laws makes for short and disheartening reading."

The annual survey, which complements TI's Corruption Perceptions Index measuring the apparent readiness of countries' officials to accept bribes, used responses from more than 11,000 businesspeople in 125 countries.

Countries whose firms are least prepared to pay bribes: Switzerland, Sweden, Australia , Austria, Canada. Countries whose firms are most prepared to pay bribes: India, China, Russia, Turkey, Taiwan Source: Transparency International

India call centre industry defends data security record after TV sting
The body representing India's booming outsourcing business has insisted that the country was a safe place to do business following a British TV (Channel 4) news sting showed alleged call centre fraud.

NASSCOM, which represents India's 24-billion-dollar information technology and outsourcing industry, is anxious to safeguard the sector's reputation from any allegations that India is lax on security. The software body said "an investigation by the Indian police is already well underway."

India's outsourcing industry has been shaken by a series of security breaches. Last year, police arrested several employees employed in the western city of Pune on accusations of robbing New York bank customers of thousands of dollars by persuading them to reveal their Internet banking passwords.

In June, police accused an employee in the high-tech city of Bangalore of selling customer bank details to fraudsters in Britain who stole money from their accounts.

Ex-Indian Defense Min. probed over missile deal with Israel
Federal investigators on Tuesday formally launched an investigation into former Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, a political associate and a former navy chief for alleged irregularities in the purchase of a missile system from Israel six years ago.

In 2000, India's Defense Ministry signed a contract to buy seven Barak anti-missile systems and 200 missiles from Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd., despite objections by a government-run defense organization that a similar system was available within the country, the CBI (India's FBI equivalent) statement said.

According to the suspicions, bribe money was transferred to the Indian agents through local branches of Israeli companies. Investigators are also probing Russian and South African companies in the affair.

"A sum of 20 million rupees [$434,780] was allegedly paid to the then-president of a political party who functioned from the residence of the then-defense minister by middlemen, while the then-treasurer of the party was paid several million [rupees] in the deal," the statement said.

The negotiated rate of $268 million was also $17 million more than an earlier agreed rate, for which there was no proper justification, the statement said.

Thai king swears in Cabinet ministers
Thailand's king swore in post-coup Cabinet ministers, urging them to work honestly as the country tries to move beyond its political crisis.

The top jobs of the interim government - announced early on Monay in a television broadcast while most Thais slept - were given to economists, high-profile civil servants and two retired military officers, all of whom are expected to govern until elections in October 2007.

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, who was appointed by the military after the Sept. 19 coup that ousted former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, led his Cabinet at the ceremony. Donning white official uniforms, they stood in rows before King Bhumibol Adulyadej as he delivered a speech at Chitlada Palace in Bangkok.

Australasia
Pope urges Australia to aid Aborigines
Pope Benedict XVI has called on Australians to address the social divisions that have left hundreds of thousands of Aborigines living in dire poverty.

Benedict also urged Aboriginal elders to lead their communities away from drug abuse, crime and alcoholism.

"I encourage them to exercise authority wisely through faithfulness to their traditions - songs, stories, paintings, dances - and most especially through a renewed expression of their deep awareness of God," the pope said in a statement.

Many of Australia's 400,000 Aborigines live in the kind of poverty more common in developing countries.

Among Australians, Aborigines have the highest rates of incarceration, unemployment, preventable disease and infant mortality. On average, they die more than 20 years younger than other Australians.

More than 100 fires raging in Australia
More than 100 wildfires raged across Australia on Thursday, sending firefighters scrambling to protect homes and farmland.

Strong, dry winds were fanning the blazes in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania states.

More than 20 fire crews and two water-bombing helicopters were struggling to contain a wildfire that was threatening dozens of homes in the Hunter Valley, a popular wine district northeast of Sydney, according to the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.

Meanwhile firefighters battled against extreme conditions in southern Victoria state, with many firefighters struggling to stand upright against the raging winds, officials said.

"We've had over 100 fires this morning, which indicates the extreme conditions and the extreme fire danger across the state," Victoria state official Graham Fountain told Southern Cross Radio.

In 2003, hundreds of houses were destroyed and four people killed when a huge blaze tore into the national capital, Canberra. Last January, nine people died in fires on South Australia state's Eyre Peninsula.

Africa
S.Africa's Buthelezi warns against ethnic war
Mangosuthu Buthelezi, head of South Africa's largest black opposition party, has warned an ethnic war could be started by supporters of former deputy president Jacob Zuma complaining of an anti-Zulu conspiracy.

South African President Thabo Mbeki fired Zuma, a Zulu, last year after he was implicated in a corruption scandal, but the charges were thrown out of court last month.

His supporters say there has been a conspiracy to deny the presidency to Zuma, who was acquitted in May on separate charges of raping an HIV-positive family friend.

Buthelezi was quoted by newspapers as warning Zuma's supporters against persistently alleging a conspiracy against Zulus "in the absence of evidence to support such an allegation."

Ivory Coast toxic waste death toll rises
The number of people who have died following the dumping of toxic waste around this West African nation's main city has risen to 10, a Health Ministry spokesman said Friday.

Health Ministry spokesman Simeon N'Da said the deaths were believed to have been caused by the toxic waste, but he said medical investigations were still ongoing to determine precisely what caused each fatality.

N'da said 102,806 people have sought treatment since a Dutch commodities trader unloaded its deadly shipment in Abidjan on Aug. 19.

Many of those visiting doctors have complained of nausea, headaches and breathing difficulties that they say were caused by the foul-smelling substance. N'da said 69 other people have been hospitalized, but all have been released.

The waste was shipped to Abidjan by a vessel chartered by Trafigura Beheer BV and dumped illegally across the city, authorities say. The Dutch company hired a local contractor to dispose of the waste. U.N. experts said it contained hydrogen sulfide, which in concentrated doses can kill humans.

Six charged with spying in Nigeria
Six people, including an Israeli citizen, were charged Tuesday with illegally obtaining classified defense documents in Nigeria.

Two of the other suspects were from Ireland and Romania, while the other three were Nigerian citizens.

Court papers alleged that the men worked with three Nigerian Defense Ministry officials to obtain information "related to a protected place." The information was to be passed on to the defense attache at the Russian Embassy in Nigeria, according to the court papers. Calls to the embassy Tuesday afternoon went unanswered.

The six face up to 14 years in jail if convicted. Prosecutors said the alleged offenses were committed with a Russian and another Irish man now at large.

Gates discusses AIDS with Nigeria leader
Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates met President Olusegun Obasanjo this weekend for talks on fighting poverty and disease on the world's poorest continent, a senior official said Sunday.

Information Minister Frank Nweke said Gates arrived in Nigeria with his wife, Melinda, on Saturday and met with Obasanjo at his farm on the outskirts of the country's biggest city, Lagos.

"The visit is to hold a number of discussions on plans to manufacture cheap software in Nigeria, fight HIV/ AIDS and alleviate poverty," Nweke said.

Gates' trip to Nigeria, Nweke said, was a follow-up on discussions the world's richest man had with Obasanjo at the last meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Nweke gave no further details.

With an endowment of $31.9 billion, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has granted more than $11 billion since its inception in 2000 to projects to help ease extreme poverty in more than 100 countries.

Plague confirmed in Congo, 42 reported dead: WHO
An outbreak of plague has been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 42 deaths reported among 626 suspected cases over the past 10 weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

But the U.N. health agency said the number of suspected cases "may be an overestimation" as the fatality ratio was unusually low for pneumonic plague.

"Preliminary results from a rapid diagnosis test in the field found three samples positive, out of eight," the WHO said, confirming the presence of the disease. It said additional tests were under way.

Highly contagious pneumonic plague is the most deadly form of plague. It can be spread by humans and usually kills half of its victims.

A team from the WHO, Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and Congolese health authorities has been investigating the outbreak near Wamba in Oriental province in the northeast of the country.

World's 15th biggest diamond sold for 12.36 million dollars
A 603-carat white diamond, the 15th largest ever found, has sold for 12.36 million dollars (9.73 million euros), owners of a Lesotho mine where the jewel was discovered have said.

Safdico, the manufacturing arm of Graff Jewelers, won the bidding for the Lesotho Promise at a sale in Antwerp last Wednesday, according to the mine's joint owners, South Africa's Gem Diamond Mining and the Lesotho government.

"We are thrilled to have won the tender for this magnificent and historical jewel," Safdico representative Yves Alexis said in a joint statement.

The diamond had been found at the Letseng Diamond Mine in the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho. It went on sale the day the southern African kingdom marked its 40th anniversary of independence from British rule.

Other world-famous diamonds from southern Africa include the 3,106.75-carat Cullinan diamond, which was split in two and forms part of the British crown jewels.