Buena Park investigators found blood and hair in Jasmine Fiore's Mercedes-Benz, indicating that she and her ex-husband, Ryan Jenkins, had fought violently in the vehicle.Buena Park police said Thursday there was a violent struggle in slain swimsuit model Jasmine Fiore's Mercedes-Benz, which authorities recovered in a West Hollywood parking lot. But investigators said they don't know whether she was killed in the car, a San Diego hotel room or somewhere else. Her body was put into a suitcase, and police believe it was dumped in a Buena Park trash bin on Aug. 14. Investigators said they found significant amounts of blood and some hair in the Mercedes. The interior of the car appeared to have been wiped down, and the car's exterior had been washed. Still, officials said they found evidence of twigs, grass and mud on the undercarriage and grill of the car, suggesting it was taken off road, most likely in the Corona area near the junction of the 91 and 15 freeways. Sgt. Bill Kohanek said police were combing that area looking for, among other things, the missing tips of Fiore's fingers and her teeth, which they believe were removed after she was killed... click here for more on this story from, The LA Times.

AFP: Former US vice president Dick Cheney Friday slammed a Justice Department probe into alleged abusive interrogation techniques by CIA agents as an "outrageous political act." In an interview with Fox News Sunday to be aired at the weekend, Cheney said the investigation would do long term damage to America's ability to protect itself, adding the administration should not punish agents for doing their jobs. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday he had named assistant US attorney John Durham to review the CIA interrogations of detainees at secret sites overseas to determine whether any laws were broken. But Cheney, who has called on the Central Intelligence Agency to release proof that harsh interrogation techniques provided key information in stopping attacks, slammed the probe. "We had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from Al-Qaeda," he told Fox News Sunday in the interview recorded on Friday. "The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, 'How did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time?'" Cheney said. "Instead, they're out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions -- threatening contrary to what the president originally said. "They're going to go out and investigate the CIA personnel who carried out those investigations," Cheney added. The Department of Justice on Monday revealed details of a report by a CIA inspector general showing that interrogators at secret CIA prisons threatened to kill the children of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Other detainees were threatened with the rape of family members, execution, shooting and torture. "I have concluded that the information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations," Holder said. But Durham's probe will be limited to examining whether there is sufficient evidence to charge individual agents with violating the special interrogation rules they were given after the September 11, 2001 attacks. If Durham's investigation concludes that US laws were broken, it is not clear whether Holder would chose to go ahead with prosecutions. Obama had previously made clear that CIA interrogators, acting on the basis of legal guidelines drawn up by former president George W. Bush's administration would not face the wrath of the law.

Reuters: A South Korean fishing boat and its crew that strayed into North Korean waters and were held for a month were returned on Saturday as the communist state reaches out to its foes after months of military grandstanding. The release of the boat was the latest in a series of conciliatory moves by the North that also included a deal on Friday to resume reunions of families separated by war and the reopening of its border with the South to commercial traffic. "We have taken over the Yonan," a coast guard official in the city of Sokcho on the east coast said, referring to the name of the fishing boat. Analysts said the conciliatory moves made by the North this month may be aimed at bolstering its coffers after U.N. sanctions imposed for its nuclear test in May made it more difficult to trade arms, cutting into a key source of cash. In the first significant action taken against the North under the U.N. sanctions adopted in June, the United Arab Emirates has seized a cargo of North Korean weapons being shipped to Iran, western diplomats at the United Nations said on Friday. The weapons seized on August 14 included rocket launchers, detonators, munitions and ammunition for rocket-propelled grenades, the diplomats said. "The cargo was deceptively labeled," said a diplomat "The cargo manifest said that the ship contained oil-boring machines. But then you opened it up and you found these arms." Diplomats said both North Korea and Iran appeared to be in breach of Security Council resolution 1874, which banned all arms exports from North Korea and authorized states to search suspicious ships and seize and destroy banned items. Diplomats said the UAE seizure, which was done on the basis of the country's own intelligence reports, was an important success for the beefed-up North Korean sanctions regime and would hopefully deter further attempts at skirting sanctions. Two South Korean coast guard vessels were guiding the squid fishing boat to port after it was turned over by the North across the maritime boarder off the peninsula's east coast on Saturday, a coast guard official said. The capture of the boat and its four-man crew on July 30 after it strayed north with a navigational system malfunction came while ties between the two Koreas were tense. North Korea had refused dialogue with the South in anger over Seoul's conservative leader's move to cut off ties until Pyongyang abandoned its nuclear arms programme.

VOA: The late U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy will be buried Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington. Earlier in the day, President Barack Obama will deliver a eulogy at the liberal icon's funeral Mass in Boston. Mr. Obama will pay tribute to Senator Kennedy's life and career, before about 1,500 people at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica, a Roman Catholic church in Boston. Former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will be among those in attendance. Kennedy died of brain cancer Tuesday, at the age of 77.  The senator will be buried later Saturday just across the Potomac River from Washington, in a small, family ceremony, near the graves of his slain brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy. Vice President Joe Biden was among the speakers who honored the legendary lawmaker at a three-hour "celebration of life" Friday night in Boston. He told Kennedy's children how much he admired the man with whom he served in the Senate for 36 years, saying, "Your father was a historic figure. He was a heroic figure beyond that." Biden says his fellow Democrat persuaded him to keep his office after his wife and daughter died in an automobile accident. The vice president says Kennedy's character was an inspiration. "He constantly renewed my faith and optimism in the possible. I never once saw your father with a defeatist attitude. I never saw him petty. I never saw him act in a small way. And as a consequence, he made us all bigger," said Biden. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who was one of Kennedy's fiercest political opponents, was also one of his best friends. The senator from Utah said, "It is a great honor for me to be here with you today, to talk about a man I have so much regard for, so much reverence for, with whom I have done battle for 33 years, and have enjoyed every minute of it." The late senator's nephew, Joseph P. Kennedy, a former congressman, says his uncle taught him to fight tirelessly to help people in need. The former congressman said, "He was always there. He was telling me, 'Never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up. You stay in the race.'" An estimated 50,000 people filed past Senator Kennedy's flag-draped coffin Thursday and Friday in Boston to pay their last respects. Kennedy represented the northeastern state of Massachusetts in the Senate for 47 years, making him the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. Fellow lawmakers and all the living former presidents have praised Ted Kennedy for reaching across party lines to pass education, health care and civil rights legislation.

The Guardian: Gordon Brown unveiled a fresh strategy for the war in Afghanistan yesterday, including a controversial "reconciliation" process for Taliban elements and speedier training of an Afghan army to replace Nato troops. Amid waning public support for the conflict, the prime minister used a visit to a British military base in Helmand province to give the first insight into changes aimed at curbing the death toll among UK soldiers. A source close to Brown suggested negotiations with insurgents sympathetic to the Taliban, persuading them to switch sides, now formed a key component of Britain's war effort. He added: "The more reconciliation, the better." Diplomatic sources in Helmand suggested such efforts could be on a large scale: "A large part of the Taliban are not really committed to their agenda. They are fighting for tactical reasons and can be brought back into mainstream life." Brown also suggested the planned training of an Afghan army capable of taking responsibility for its own country's defence could be accelerated by a year, potentially speeding up the departure of Nato troops. A major US review of the military strategy due shortly is expected to focus on the same issue. Brown promised more armoured vehicles and specialist bomb disposal teams, following widespread criticism of the protection offered to UK forces in a conflict that has claimed 208 British lives, including a Royal Marine killed yesterday morning. The prime minister praised the "courage, bravery and patriotism" of UK personnel in his visit to Camp Bastion, after a week that confirmed 2009 as the bloodiest year on record since the US-led invasion in Afghanistan eight years ago. He admitted it had been a "most difficult summer". Speaking yesterday to both main candidates in last week's Afghan national elections, the outcome of which will finally be determined next month, Brown promised them thousands more troops. Officials declined to be drawn on any potential increase in British troops, however, saying only that the deployment in Helmand was "under review". David Miliband, the foreign secretary, first suggested last month talking to lower ranks of the Taliban, to encourage fighters on the ground to switch sides. Downing Street stressed then that talks would be limited to people prepared to renounce violence, not those still actively fighting, but said Brown supported President Hamid Karzai's view that Taliban elements prepared to embrace peace could be rehabilitated. Senior British diplomats in Helmand confirmed concerted attempts had begun to peel off Taliban elements, a move that could theoretically shorten the conflict. The strategy echoes deals done with insurgents in Iraq, as well as during the British campaign in Malaya, and in Vietnam. For some months there have been active attempts to persuade local Taliban fighters to down weapons, with incentives to encourage them back into civilian life. However, they have had mixed success, with complaints that promises made have not always been kept.

CNN: Shortly before his death, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy wrote a letter to Pope Benedict XVI asking for the pontiff to pray for him as he struggled with an aggressive form of brain cancer, it was revealed at his graveside service Saturday evening.  Kennedy, the youngest and last-surviving brother of a heralded Kennedy generation, was laid to rest on a hillside at Arlington National Cemetery alongside his slain brothers, the late President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy -- both assassinated more than four decades ago. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick read a recent letter from Kennedy to the pope at the private burial ceremony in Arlington, Virginia. "I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines," McCarrick said, quoting from Kennedy's letter. "I was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, and although I continue treatment the disease is taking its toll on me. I am 77 years old, and preparing for the next passage of life," the cardinal read. The burial service at dusk followed a eulogy by President Barack Obama in Massachusetts, a brief prayer service outside the U.S. Capitol and a procession through the crowd-lined street of Washington's streets. Among the congressional colleagues greeting the Kennedy family at the Capitol was 91-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, who has been out of the spotlight lately because of deteriorating health. Many who had gathered at the Capitol were visibly emotional and wiping tears from their eyes. Some held framed photos of Kennedy, and many held American flags that they waved during a singing of "America the Beautiful." The Rev. Daniel Coughlin -- chaplain of the House of Representatives -- said a prayer and addressed the family. "Here we are to pray with you, offer sympathy and thank you," he said. "Thank you for sharing the senator." Coughlin also noted that Kennedy's hopes were "unquenchable, full of immortality." As Kennedy's widow, Vicki, went back into the car, she waved to the crowd and mouthed, "Thank you" as the crowd erupted into applause. The late senator's son, U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, addressed those on the steps, saying how his father "knew that he was only great because he had great people supporting him." "He would be very proud to see you all out here today paying a final respect and tribute to his memory," he said. Earlier Saturday at the funeral in Boston, Massachusetts, Obama hailed Kennedy as "a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic Party; and the lion of the U.S. Senate." "He was given the gift of time that his brothers were not, and he used that gift to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow," the president said. "We can still hear his voice bellowing through the Senate chamber, face reddened, fist pounding the podium, a veritable force of nature, in support of health care or workers' rights or civil rights," Obama said, calling Kennedy "the greatest legislator of our time." Kennedy's son Ted Jr. delivered a tender, personal remembrance of his larger-than-life father. He said his father "never stopped trying to right wrongs." Kennedy lived up to the ideals of three older brothers, all of whom died young -- Joseph in World War II, President John and Sen. Robert assassinated -- his son said.

 A former British Royal Marine whose heroic exploits inspired a Hollywood film has been lost overboard in the South Pacific. Yachtsman David Parkinson disappeared from his 40 foot sloop Santana en-route from the island of  Niue to Tonga. His crewman, New Zealander Alexander McDonald, was rescued after activating an SOS beacon which was picked up by British marine authorities who alerted the Tongan Navy. Mr McDonald, 65, who could not sail the yacht alone, drifted for three days before being saved by a Tongan rescue boat. An aerial search found no sign of the missing Briton, who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

His brother, Chris, said David was attempting to sail around the world and had recently had a pacemaker implanted in his chest. In an email published by the New Zealand Herald from his home in the United States he said, “No body and I doubt there’ll be one.“I hope his passing was quick and painless, though I doubt it was peaceful.”David Parkinson had retired from the Royal Marines to work as a hostage negotiator for a London company called Control Risks.

 One of his cases, in Columbia, was later made into the film, Proof of Life, starring Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. Mr Parkinson invited Mr McDonald to join him in Tahiti, after his Spanish crewman left. The New Zealander had little sailing experience and tried to raise the alarm after waking to find his skipper missing on August 20.Tongan police who later interviewed Mr McDonald, said yesterday (Sun) that he was in good health and free to go.

AP: Pakistani soldiers killed at least 30 Taliban militants in gunbattles across the volatile northwestern Swat Valley after a suicide bombing on a police station killed 17 cadets, the military said Monday. Soldiers looking for militants after the bombing encountered resistance in several areas and battles raged overnight into early morning Monday, army spokesman Col. Akhtar Abbas said. "Security forces have encircled a group of militants there and battles went on late into the night," he said, adding that 30 militants were killed. A separate army statement said one soldier was killed in the fighting in three separate areas of the valley. The military has said it is restoring security in Swat after a three-month operation to retake control of areas overrun by Taliban militants. Still, suicide attacks and skirmishes continue. The death toll in Sunday's suicide attack rose to 17 as one of the wounded died, local hospital official Ikram Khan said. The bomber sneaked into a police courtyard in the valley's main town of Mingora and detonated his explosives next to a group of volunteers training for a community policing force. The attack was the deadliest since the military regain control of most of Swat in July.

Haaretz: For the first time in the history of the State of Israel, a person who served as prime minister will sit on the defendant's bench. The State Prosecution filed charges Sunday against former prime minister Ehud Olmert, attributing to him a litany of violations that include accepting bribes, fraud, breach of trust, falsifying documents and income tax evasion. Olmert's attorneys said late Sunday following news of his indictment that the prosecution had no evidence of the gravest charges against him, particularly bribe-taking, money laundering or theft.

  The indictment proves to us just how right we were to refuse to attend a hearing with the attorney general and the state prosecution," wrote his attorneys in response to the indictment. The corruption trial is expected to last up to four years, without taking into account possible appeals at the Supreme Court. A panel of justices at the Jerusalem District Court will likely deliberate over Olmert's case twice a week. The indictment focuses on three investigations against Olmert for which he was questioned by police: the Talansky Affair, Rishon Tours, and the Investment Center. The charges also refer to false declarations made to the State Comptroller regarding funds he received from a U.S. citizen and an assessment of the value of his pen collection. Olmert's former bureau chief, Shula Zaken, was also indicted with similar charges. She is also accused of wire tapping Olmert's conversations with politicians and ministers, without his knowledge.

According to the indictment filed by State Prosecutor Moshe Lador, Jerusalem District Prosecutor Eli Abarbanel, and attorney Uri Corb, Olmert and Zaken abused his political position "in systematic and drawn out activities for financial benefits ... in different ways and from different sources ... all in manners that contravened the law, the norms and the rules that obligate a minister and a public servant." The first charge relates to the Rishon Tours case. Olmert is accused of claiming double and triple reimbursement from public organizations and from the state during the years 2002-2006 for trips he took on their behalf. In this way he is believed to have pocketed $92,164. The cash, along with the frequent flyer mileage he accumulated were used for his private trips abroad, as well as for his family and the upgrading of their flights. In order to be able to make the false claims, Olmert and Zaken got Rishon Tours to issue fictitious receipts to the organizations that were covering the expenses of the flights. The false information included falsifying travel routes, and inflated costs for flights. The reimbursement was sought from a number of organizations at the same time. The indictment lists 17 flights in which the costs were inflated. Among the organizations that paid for these flights are Akim, Yad Vashem and State of Israel Bonds, among others. The extra money was kept in a checking account under Olmert's name.  The indictment shows that Olmert owed money to Rishon Tours and in May 2007 transferred NIS 12,460 to cover a quarter of the debt. The rest Rishon Tours' owner Emanuel Baumelshpiner had covered from the accounts of other clients at the office, without their knowledge or agreement. According to the charges, in order to hide the fact that he purchased tickets from Rishon Tours which had not won a tender making it an authorized ticket sales officer for the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which Olmert headed at the time, he made use of other offices that had won tenders for the transfer of the funds. In his statements to the State Comptroller, Olmert is accused of hiding the fact that he had an account with the travel office or the fact that he owed them money.  The other charges have to do with the Talansky Affair and the Investment Center. According to the indictment Olmert received more than $600,000 between the years 1997-2005 from the American fund raiser Morris Talansky. The funds were transferred in a number of ways: directly into a bank account, in envelopes of cash, or through Olmert's former bureau chief, Shula Zaken. Some of the money was placed in a secret account held by Olmert's confidant and former partner, attorney Uri Messer, and according to the indictment more funds were delivered to this account from sources that are not known to the prosecution. As reported by Haaretz, $300,000 of the money Talansky gave Olmert was used to cover debts of a non-profit organization that backed Olmert when he ran for mayor of Jerusalem in 1998.  Regarding the Investment Center charges, Olmert is accused of "a conflict of interest" with the clients of Messer in a business issue that affected him and his function as Minister of Industry. The indictment refers to "serious personal obligation toward Messer, at which time he should have taken himself out of the entire dealing with Messer and his clients." Olmert's communications adviser, Amir Dan, said Sunday in response to the indictment that "after they removed a prime minister from government it was clear that the attorney general and the State Prosecution had no other option than to file an indictment against Olmert." "The court of law, on the other hand, is free of such ulterior motives, and therefore Olmert is convinced that at the court he will be able, once and for all, to prove his innocence," he added. "It is important to remember that the Cremieux and Bank Leumi affairs [other police investigation against Olmert] also began with huge headlines and stood for years, until they ended with nothing. The end of these cases will be the same."

Reuters: Japan's next prime minister began forming a government on Monday as investors worried that the untested Democratic Party would overspend in a bid to revive the economy or ruffle ties with Tokyo's closest ally, Washington. Sunday's historic election win by Yukio Hatoyama's party breaks a deadlock in parliament and will usher in a government that has promised to focus spending on consumers, cut wasteful budget outlays and reduce the power of bureaucrats. The defeated Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was left to lick its wounds after its worst election performance since the conservative party was founded in 1955. The party had ruled Japan for most of the last half-century. "It's taken a long time, but we have at last reached the starting line," Hatoyama told a news conference at his home a day after voters gave his party a sweeping mandate for change. "This is by no means the destination. At long last we are able to move politics, to create a new kind of politics that will fulfill the expectations of the people." The yen rose to a 7-week high, buoyed by the end of electoral uncertainty. The Nikkei share average, after hitting a near 11-month high, closed slightly down as the stronger yen sent shares of exporters lower.

Leaders from both sides in World War II gathered Tuesday for ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the start of the conflict in Europe, when a German ship fired on a Polish base on the Baltic. At 4:45 am (0245 GMT), Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, joined by diplomats and veterans, paid tribute to the victims of the conflict which was to claim an estimated 50 million lives, including six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. At events later Tuesday, leaders of some 20 nations including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin -- were to join them in remembering history's bloodiest conflict, whose legacy endures and divides to this day."We are here to remember who in that war was the aggressor and who was the victim, for without an honest memory neither Europe, nor Poland, nor the world will ever live in security," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared at the pre-dawn ceremony. Memorial events centre on Westerplatte, a peninsula on the edge of Gdansk (then the Free City of Danzig) and home in 1939 to a small Polish base... click here for more on this story from, AFP.

The sheer scale and brazen nature of vote rigging in Afghanistan’s elections has left the US Administration scrambling for a “least-worst” option, according to officials haunted by the spectre of a failed government in Kabul. The widespread evidence of fraud followed a decision by Washington to remain completely neutral in the run-up to the election. It was a position that had been strongly argued by Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s “AfPak” envoy, who said any appearance of interference might backfire. As President Karzai edges towards a first-round victory — preliminary results have him on 46 per cent, against 33 per cent for his nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah — the White House faces the prospect of backing a man whose regime is seen widely as ineffective and corrupt and who may have stolen the election. The Times understands that emergency discussions are taking place in Washington to come up with an alternative. One option is to try to engineer a second-round run-off in an attempt to give the election greater legitimacy. However, when Mr Holbrooke suggested the idea to Mr Karzai over dinner in Kabul last week the Afghan leader reacted with fury. Some US officials think the account was deliberately leaked by the Karzai camp to make him look like the only man willing to stand up to Washington... click here for more on this story from, The Times.

Turkey and Armenia, whose century of hostilities constitutes one of the world’s most enduring and acrimonious international rivalries, have agreed to establish diplomatic relations, the two countries announced Monday.In a breakthrough that came after a year of tiny steps across a still-sealed border and furtive bilateral talks in Switzerland, the foreign ministries of the two countries said that they would begin talks aimed at producing a formal agreement. The joint statement said they had agreed “to start political negotiations” but did not touch on when or how some of their more intractable disputes would be addressed, starting with the killing of more than a million Armenians by the Ottoman Turk government from 1915 to 1918, which the Turkish government has denied was genocide.he two countries have never had diplomatic relations, and their border has been closed since 1993, when Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, went to war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. At the border, soldiers of Turkey, a NATO country, face Russian ones, called in by Armenia, across a mini-Iron Curtain. Turkey supported Azerbaijan in the dispute, but Russia’s military action in Georgia last year shifted the security calculus in the region. After the war in Georgia, Turkey sought to improve ties with its neighbors in the Caucasus, and Armenia elected a new government interested in reciprocating. Both countries hope an eventual opening of the border will benefit their struggling economies. Currently, there are limited charter flights between the countries but no real trade... click here for more on this story from, The New York Times.

Sri Lanka faced a barrage of condemnation on Tuesday for the jailing of a journalist whose sentencing drew criticism from the US and warnings about censorship from press freedom groups. New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to overturn the Colombo High Court order sentencing Tamil reporter J. S. Tissainayagam to 20 years of hard labour. "The Rajapakse administration should drop the case against this well-respected journalist whose only 'crime' was to express his political views," HRW director Brad Adams said in a statement. He said the case "furthered the impression in Sri Lanka and abroad that Tissainayagam's prosecution is part of a government campaign of repression against independent media." After the verdict, US State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said that Washington was "disappointed to learn of the verdict and the severity of the sentence." click here for more on this story from, AFP.

North and South Korea have restored regular access across their heavily fortified border, for traffic going to and from a jointly-run industrial park. The North had severely limited access across the border since December 2008. The border will be opened 23 times a day to traffic, up from the previous six times a day. The reopening is the latest sign that North Korea has softened its stance against the South since its nuclear and missile tests in May. Seoul's Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo told reporters that the number of people and vehicles allowed to cross the border at one time would also no longer be restricted. The crossing provides access to and from the Kaesong industrial park, where South Korea runs 110 factories employing about 40,000 North Korean workers - an important source of foreign exchange for the North Korean government... click here for more on this story from, The BBC.

Japan's new government will have a shaky mandate when it takes office later this month, a poll indicated Wednesday, as party leaders acknowledged they must get to work immediately to deal with the country's severe economic problems. Most Japanese voters chose the opposition in historic weekend elections because they were fed up with a half century of rule by the governing conservatives, not because they were enthused by what the opposition had to offer, according to the poll in the Asahi, a major national newspaper. The poll found most voters remain skeptical about whether the victorious Democratic Party of Japan can make good on its promises to bring the world's second-largest economy out of its worst slowdown since World War II, rein in the powerful bureaucracy and restore Japan's international credibility after a succession of three prime ministers in three years. The Democrats are expected to form a new government and name leader Yukio Hatoyama as prime minister on Sept. 16, replacing outgoing Taro Aso. In Sunday's elections, the Democrats won 308 of the 480 seats in the powerful lower house, giving them control of the chamber. Aso has announced he will step down as president of the conservative, pro-big business Liberal Democratic Party, which has led Japan for all but nearly 11 months since it was created in 1955. "We will do all we can to ensure a smooth transition," chief Cabinet spokesman Takeo Kawamura said Wednesday... click here for more on this story from, The AP.

Despite pleas to the contrary from the police, fire chiefs and the Governor of California himself, some Los Angeles residents whose homes are under direct threat from wildfires closing in on the city's northern suburbs have decided to stay put. Bill Ryder, a city prosecutor, sat and watched the flames licking and leaping across the tinder-dry brush about half a mile from his home on Haines Canyon Road in Tujunga with his wife and two children. "When the fire gets over there," he said, pointing across the road at open land. "Then we'll go, but the winds aren't strong at the moment and we feel OK. The cars are parked down the road, ready to go." The Ryders like many other families have ignored mandatory evacuation orders, which the authorities are not physically enforcing. Three people were badly burned when they decided to sit out the fire in a hot tub, while uncertainty surrounds the fate of five people who said they were trapped but then denied they had called for help. In an attempt to prevent further injuries or deaths during the fires, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, has renewed his plea for residents to leave their homes when told to do so...click here for more on this story from, The Telegraph.

Six countries trying to address concerns about Iran's nuclear program are to meet in Germany Wednesday, a day after the Islamic regime said it would present a new package of proposals. The meeting is to take place at an undisclosed location near Frankfurt and involves political directors from the U.S., France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany. No official announcements are expected. On Tuesday, Iran's main nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, told reporters his nation will present new proposals and will open talks "in order to ease common concerns in the international arena." Western nations and others worry Iran is moving toward development of nuclear warheads. But Iranian leaders say the country only seeks reactors to produce electricity. In its latest report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it has pressed Iran to clarify the purpose of its uranium enrichment activities and reassure the world that it's not trying to build an atomic weapon... click here for more on this story from, The AP.

Hurricane Jimena weakened to a Category 2 storm as it bore down on the coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula. Jimena's maximum sustained winds decreased late Tuesday to near 110 mph (175 kph) and the National Hurricane Center in Miami said it was expected to weaken further before making landfall Wednesday. Jimena's change in status came a day after the hurricane brushed passed the resort towns at the southern tip of the Baja California, lashing them with driving rain and winds. Despite the pummeling by the fringes of the then-Category 3 hurricane, the Mexican peninsula's biggest resort, Los Cabos, appeared to be escaping major damage beyond power outages and mud-choked roads. Dozens of people evacuated from the Los Congrejos shantytown huddled in darkened rooms at a school after electricity failed during the storm. Trying to calm squalling babies and ignore hunger from having little food, the evacuees waited for dawn, and a chance to look at what the hurricane did to their homes made of plastic sheeting, wood and tar paper. "Instead of giving out a few sheets of roofing every year, they should give us materials to build real houses — wood, or even bricks," said Paulino Hernandez, an out-of-work mason who sought haven at the school. "Every year it's the same thing: They (officials) give out a few sheets of roofing, and the next year it has to be replaced" when a hurricane comes... click here for more on this story from, The AP.

In Libya, the convicted the Lockerbie bomber was taken into intensive care as his condition worsened. He issuffering from terminal cancer , and in Britain there is more political fallout over his release last month from a Scottish jail and a life sentence. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his government are on the defensive, insisting there was no link between the release of Abdelbasset ali al Megrahi and a Libyan oil and gas exploration deal, even though the foreign secretary conceded the government did not want the bomber die in jail. In his first substantive comment on the affair, the prime minister was emphatic there was 'no deal, no double dealing and no assurances given to Colonel Gadhafi.' And in Scotland's parliament lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to condemn their government for releasing Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

At least 46 people were killed and scores injured after a powerful earthquake struck southern Indonesia yesterday. Local reports said some of the victims had been killed in a landslide near the southern coast of Java, the country's main island, while others died when houses and other buildings collapsed. The magnitude-7 earthquake shook buildings in the capital, Jakarta, sending thousands of people on to the streets. It struck at a depth of about 30 miles (48km) off Java's south coast, the US Geological Survey said, and was the strongest to hit the region since a magnitude-7.5 quake rocked India's Andaman Islands on 10 August. The government said it was sending medical teams to Tasikmalaya, a town in West Java about 70 miles from the epicentre. Local hospitals said scores of injured people were being admitted... click here for more on this story from, Indonesia.

Western diplomats struggled yesterday to secure an agreement on imposing tougher sanctions on Iran in an attempt to end its nuclear programme. The meeting of the five United Nations permanent Security Council members and Germany was complicated by a last-minute offer of talks from Saeed Jalili, the top nuclear negotiator in Iran. Because no details of the offer were available, the delegates assumed that Mr Jalili planned to use his proposal to slow the progress of moves to impose sanctions. Russia and China used the prospect of a peace offering from Tehran, however vague, as an argument against punitive measures. One of the diplomats said: “The point is to duck, dive, tease and confuse until they are more or less resistant to the kind of sanctions that we have been considering.”One plan, currently before the US Congress, is to ban exports of refined petroleum products and tighten control over Iran’s activities in the financial and insurance markets. A ban on petrol would hit Iran since it imports about 40 per cent of its needs. Petrol shortages have, in the past, led to domestic protests... click here for more on this story from, The Times.

A Government minister who had repeatedly spoken out against the Pakistan Taliban narrowly escaped an assassination attempt after gunmen ambushed his vehicle in the heart of the capital. In an attack that apparently underlines the continued ability of militants to strike after weeks of disarray following the killing of a senior leader, two gunmen travelling on motorbikes sprayed the official car of Hamid Saeed Kazmi with automatic fire. Pakistan’s religious affairs minister was hit in the leg but his driver was killed, in the most high-profile attack on an elected official in recent years. “This is an attempt to demoralise the people of Pakistan and those Pakistanis who are countering the Taliban mindset,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokeswoman for President Asif Ali Zardari. “But they will not succeed, the people and government are unified against this threat.” The attack came a day after the government warned of Taliban threats against religious and political leaders. Mr Kazmi had himself received a flurry of death threats for speaking out openly against the Taliban’s brutality. The minister has been at the head of government efforts to rally religious opinion against the Taliban and had gathered an array of religious leaders to denounce militancy ahead of the army’s operation to clear militants from the Swat Valley... click here for more on this story from, The Independent.

anada's government distanced itself from an independent refugee tribunal's controversial decision granting a white South African man asylum in this country because he was persecuted by blacks. Canada's foreign affairs department said in a statement it "respects the independence" of the Immigration and Refugee Board and its decision to grant the Cape Town born Brandon Huntley, 31, refugee status. It added, "The Immigration and Refugee Board operates at arms? length from the Canadian government and its decision-makers are not subject to outside influence, making decisions solely on the basis of evidence presented at the refugee hearing." The ruling has caused a race debate in South Africa. South Africa's ruling African National Congress party has described Huntley's claims that he was "attacked seven times by Africans due to his skin colour" as "sensational and alarming." "Canada's reasoning for granting Huntley a refugee status can only serve to perpetuate racism," it added. Ottawa said it "recognizes the achievements of the government of South Africa in promoting a tolerant, multi-racial society." Canada and South Africa enjoy a "deep and mutually-beneficial relationship" it said, and added that "the tribunal's decisions are independent from the views of the Canadian government." Huntley told The Star newspaper Wednesday that he had won asylum because he fears that he could face violent persecution for being white... click here for more on this story from, The AFP.

NATO forces were investigating whether they killed scores of Afghan civilians on Friday after carrying out an air strike against two hijacked fuel tankers and causing a big explosion. The incident in the northern province of Kunduz could reignite outrage against foreign troops, two months after the new commander of U.S. and Afghan forces in the country announced measures to reduce civilian casualties, which he said were undermining the war effort. Lieutenant-Commander Christine Sidenstricker, press officer for the U.S. and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said Afghan authorities had reported two fuel trucks hijacked, and NATO air craft spotted them on a river bank. "After observing that only insurgents were in the area, the local ISAF commander ordered air strikes which destroyed the fuel trucks and killed a large number of insurgents," she said. "The strike was against insurgents. That's who we believe was killed. But we are absolutely investigating" reports of civilian deaths, she said. Asked how pilots could know whether a crowd gathered around the truck included civilians or fighters, she said: "Based on information available at the scene, the commanders believed they were insurgents." click here for more on this story from, Reuters.