Suicide Attack! Tense stand-off in Thai capital

Troops are on the streets of Bangkok after its worst anti-government protests for 16 years left at least two dead and hundreds injured.

Demonstrators had set up a blockade outside the parliament building, which Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat escaped by climbing over a fence.

The activists were trying to stop the inauguration of a government they say is run by ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra.

But as troops moved in, protesters pulled back from the blockade.

The appearance of troops outside parliament is a clear sign that the government is struggling to maintain its authority, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok.

Parliament blockade

The demonstrators - from the staunchly royalist People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) - have been occupying the grounds of government buildings for weeks, but until Tuesday their demonstration had been largely peaceful.

An alliance of conservative and staunchly royalist academics, activists and business people, the PAD has proved to be a well organised and tactically savvy movement, our correspondent adds.

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Clashes in the streets of the Thai capital Bangkok

Several thousand PAD protesters broke out of the compound where they had been staying and marched to the parliament.

They tried to seal off the building by putting up barriers of old tyres and barbed wire.

Police fired volleys of tear gas in an unsuccessful attempt to disperse the demonstrators and around 380 people - including eight police officers who were reportedly shot or stabbed - were injured in ensuing clashes.

The protesters later regrouped, locking some lawmakers inside the building and cutting off the power supply.

Amid the worst street violence since pro-democracy activists challenged Thailand's army in 1992, one person was killed when a suspected car bomb exploded outside the building. A woman also later died, reportedly of chest wounds.

Troops were eventually brought in to help the police and, as army commanders took pains to ensure the public there would be no coup, most protesters pulled back to their camp in Government House.

Forced to flee

The violence prompted the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, the government's chief negotiator with the PAD, who said police had failed to exercise the restraint he had requested.

Anti-government protesters were involved in clashes with police Enlarge Image

Mr Somchai had been holding talks with military commanders on how to end the weeks-long stand-off, before he was forced to flee the parliament building.

The protesters accuse him and his recently ousted predecessor, Samak Sundaravej, of simply being proxies for Mr Thaksin.

The PAD wants to replace the one-man, one-vote system with one in which some representatives are chosen by professions and social groups rather than the general electorate.

Mr Thaksin, Mr Somchai's brother-in-law, was forced from office in a military coup in 2006.

The new government says it wants to start negotiations with the PAD.

However, it is also pushing ahead with controversial plans to amend the constitution - a key grievance of the protesters who see it as part of a plan to rehabilitate Mr Thaksin.

The alliance says the government must resign because of its links to Mr Thaksin, who lives in the UK and has requested political asylum there.

It accuses him of corruption and abuse of power while he was in office.

It has also suggested that Mr Thaksin and his allies have a hidden republican agenda, a serious charge at a time when the country is beset by anxiety over the future of the monarchy.

French to fight police database

Lord Erroll is quizzed over governments' access to personal data

David Reid reports on a storm brewing in France over plans to build a database to hold details of people considered likely to breach public order.

Civil liberties groups fear that the new police database, called Edvige, would significantly erode rights to privacy.

Although governments regularly gather and store data about citizens, Edvige would include information about the youngest members of society.

"These people could be filed starting from the age of thirteen with a very large amount of data on their life, on their relatives, on their friends, acquaintance…everything," says Meryem Marzouki from the French National Scientific Research Center (CNRS).

Children at risk

Justifying the creation of Edvige, Gerard Gachet, a spokesperson for the French Ministry of the Interior, says: "Unfortunately we have been confronted by an explosion in juvenile crime."

"If you want to put into force a preventative measure, you have to be able to list these young people in a dossier, and be able to go and see them. Or go and see their parents and say 'watch out', your son or daughter is at risk of falling into juvenile crime," he says.

Gérard Gachet says the system would be a "preventative" measure

The row over Edvige led thousands of French people to sign an online petition which forced the French president Nicolas Sarkozy to revise plans.

Among the changes were the withdrawal of the proposal to include political activists, union leaders and religious leaders in the same dossier as potential delinquent youngsters.

Jean-Claude Vitran, from the human rights group Ligue des droits de l'Homme, fears what the data in Edvige will be used for.

"We could well imagine that the one day the extreme left could take power in a democratic country like ours. Then what happens to this information? What do we do? What we'll have is what happened in Eastern Europe 40 or 30 years ago. We'll have police files like the Stasi's," says Mr Vitran. "We don't want that."

Civil rights groups are continuing their fight against Edvige claiming that it will turn France into a Big Brother State. A ruling on the database is expected by the end of the year.

Loss leader

The fears many people have about the personal information filed away in databases goes further than worries about civil liberties or being bothered by junk mail.

Increasingly people are wondering if the organisations gathering sensitive personal information can be trusted to keep it safe.

In Europe the UK has taken the lead on losing data starting with the disappearance of discs containing the personal details of 25 million people in November 2007.

Jean-Claude Vitran has fears over the future use of stored data

The latest lapse took place in early September when a Home Office contractor lost a USB stick containing a variety of details about many of the UK's prisoners.

In response to the growing links between different public services in the late 70s, France created a national data protection authority CNIL to oversee how officials use and pass data.

Yann Padova, secretary general of CNIL, said stipulates that centralised data must be broken up into storage systems and access only allowed to those strictly authorised.

He added that bodies should avoid putting data on laptops or memory sticks because these can easily be lost.

"The more you centralise data, the more value it has," says Mr Padova, "and if someone cracks it, the more damaging it will be."

Data sharing between government departments can threaten its security. But the sharing of individuals' details between official bodies has also come under the spotlight.

Unlike the UK, every time information is shared between different parts of the French government, these need to permission from CNIL.

"The connection of many different public services can be a danger in itself," he says. "We are very strict in this data crossing from different public services."

Hollywood mourns star Paul Newman

Hollywood has been mourning the death of Oscar-winning film legend Paul Newman, who died of cancer aged 83.

Paul Newman's career spanned six decades and some 60 films

Tributes have been pouring in for the star of movies such as Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and The Sting.

His co-star in both films, Robert Redford, said "I have lost a real friend" while Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey said Newman was a "great humble giant".

Former actor California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called him "a generous but modest philanthropist".

Former US president Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary described him as "an American icon, philanthropist and champion for children," in a statement.

Newman died at his Connecticut home on Friday.

A statement from Newman's family said: "His death was as private and discreet as the way he had lived his life."

SELECT FILMOGRAPHY The Silver Chalice, 1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1958 The Hustler, 1961 Hud, 1963 Cool Hand Luke, 1967 (pictured) Rachel Rachel (director), 1968 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969 The Sting, 1973 The Towering Inferno, 1974 Absence of Malice, 1981 The Verdict, 1982 The Color of Money, 1986 Nobody's Fool, 1994 Road to Perdition, 2002 Cars (voice), 2006

The star's five daughters praised their father's "selfless humility and generosity" in a statement released to the press.

"Paul Newman played many unforgettable roles," they said.

"But the ones for which he was proudest never had top billing on the marquee: Devoted husband, loving father, adoring grandfather, dedicated philanthropist."

In Los Angeles, flowers were placed on Newman's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as the Motion Picture Association of America hailed his "extraordinary career."

The actor starred in some 60 films in a career that spanned five decades.

He was nominated for an Academy Award 10 times - but it took him 33 years to win one, picking up the best actor trophy for The Color Of Money in 1987.

In May 2007, Newman said he was giving up acting because he could no longer perform to the best of his ability.

"I'm not able to work any more... at the level that I would want to," he told US broadcaster ABC.

"You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention.

Earlier this year, he pulled out of directing a stage production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in Connecticut because of unspecified health problems.

'Ego removed'

Eulogies for the star have poured in from friends and colleagues around the world.

Sam Mendes, who directed Newman in 2002's Road To Perdition, said the actor was "an extraordinary man in every respect".

The thing I remember the most about him is his total lack of ego and his lack of entourage and his lack of hangers-on."

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Some of Paul Newman's iconic performances - courtesy 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros

Film star George Clooney said: "He set the bar too high for the rest of us. Not just actors, but all of us."

Kevin Spacey added: "He used his success to help others and did it without wanting a lot of credit.

"He should be an example to everyone in the acting profession because he seemed to have had his ego surgically removed."

Hit films

Although his handsome looks and piercing blue eyes made him an ideal romantic lead, Newman often played rebels, tough guys and losers.

"I was always a character actor," he once said. "I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood."

His movies included Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, The Sting and Hud.

More tributes to Paul Newman

Along the way, he worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood - including Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Elizabeth Taylor, Lauren Bacall and Tom Hanks.

He also appeared with his wife, Joanne Woodward, in several films including Long Hot Summer and Paris Blues. The star later directed his wife in movies such as Rachel, Rachel and The Glass Menagerie.

But his most famous screen partner was undoubtedly Robert Redford, his sidekick in both Butch Cassidy and The Sting.

In addition to his Academy Award for best actor, he was given an honorary Oscar in 1986 "in recognition of his many and memorable compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft".

YOUR MEMORIES His humour, charm, cleverness and above all his humanity could never be copied Felicity Wood, London, UK Send your tributes to Paul Newman

In 1994, he picked up a third Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, for his charitable work.

His philanthropic efforts included the establishment of summer camps for children who suffered from life-threatening illnesses.

He also donated profits from his Newman's Own food range to a number of charitable organisations.

Newman's last film role was as the voice of Doc Hudson, one of the most famous racing cars in history, in the Pixar animation Cars.

It was perhaps a fitting epitaph for the actor, who had a lifelong fascination with the sport - and put his film career on hold in the 1970s to become a professional racing driver.

He is survived by his wife, five children, two grandsons and his older brother Arthur.

A link to eternity

Google's smart searching is likely to find you even after you end up here

Search results give us all a form of immortality, says Bill Thompson

While Google is as secretive about its internal processes and systems as Apple is about product development, every now and then senior people post articles on the official Google blog and offer their thoughts on the development of the web.

In the latest posting two Google engineers, Alfred Spector and Franz Och, look at how search strategies will benefit from the faster computers, greater volumes of data and better algorithms we are likely to see in the next decade, speculating that "we could train our systems to discern not only the characters or place names in a YouTube video or a book, for example, but also to recognise the plot or the symbolism."

Instead of just analysing hypertext links, they say, the systems would observe, record and learn from all sorts of behaviour and interpret "objects, nuances, intentions, meanings, and other deep conceptual information."

They foresee better search and seamless translation between languages, which will benefit Google. It will also, Spector and Och are keen to point out, help the rest of us too by improving the quality of scientific research and analysis of large data sets.

Conceptual search sounds particularly appealing at the moment as I am spending almost every waking moment working on the Cambridge Film Festival, where I am a trustee.

Being able to find "Polish films about an ice skater with a body double and a sad ending" with a single search would be a real boon (and yes, it's a real question), even if the price is letting Google rifle through every bit of digitised data for all eternity.

Father Google

While I am not as sanguine as Google's engineers about the prospects of solving many of the fundamental problems that have faced the artificial intelligence community for almost half a century simply by throwing faster hardware and bigger disks at them, the blog post reveals something of the unbounded optimism that Google still possesses.

These stored interactions and connections carve out a Bill-shaped space on the network, and this space will only slowly fade away after I die. Bill Thompson

Give us enough data, they seem to be saying, and we will show you your deepest desires and make them real. Google does not ask for belief in an unseen deity or faith in the supernatural, but it does want to be trusted like a priest, or a parent.

Google and other search engines have developed vast data stores that can keep track of the contents of a significant part of the whole web and store most of the transaction data too. Each year the Google Zeitgeist shows how search trends change, because they can look at every query we make and analyse what web search expert and blogger John Battelle calls "the database of intentions".

They also keep this data for a long time, sometimes in anonymised form but still there, and as we saw when AOL released what they thought was anonymous data on people's searches, it is easier than it looks to link a person to a pattern of behaviour.

It will get a lot easier if there is some form of 'intelligent' or concept-based search, too. 'Find me someone who likes Derek Jarman films, lives in Cambridge and shows an obsessive interest in Google', would probably nail me, I suspect.

The acquisition and analysis of data is a continuing project, but this has significant implications in a changing world populated by mortal humans, because Google won't lose interest in me when I'm dead.

Social networks of the dead

At the recent dConstruct conference in Brighton author Steven Johnson talked about his book The Ghost Map, an exploration of the way that John Snow and Henry Whitehead discovered the source of the 1854 cholera outbreak in London and prompted the building of modern sewerage systems.

The breakthrough came when Snow plotted the deaths from cholera on a map of the area and drew a line around the homes that took water from the pump on Broad Street and the correlation became obvious.

In his talk Johnson joked that the people shown on the map were a 'social network of dead people' and that he should have called his book The Wisdom of Dead Crowds in homage to James Surowiecki.

1850's Soho: an early incarnation of the geographic web

The people on Snow's maps were just dots, but today's social networks have far richer portraits of the dead who populate them.

My friend Anne was slightly freaked out when she got a note on Facebook to tell her that the online status of a friend who had died recently had been updated. It turned out that her friend's brother has taken over the profile as an online memorial.

Last.fm and Apple know what music I listen to, Facebook knows who my friends are, Dopplr knows where I'm going and Brightkite knows where I am. And of course Twitter knows what I'm thinking.

At the same time I am leaving a mark with every link I have made from my blog to someone else's writing and every time I have clicked on one item from a page of search results to find a video or book or song, because it affects the rankings those pages get in other people's search results.

Taken as a whole these stored interactions and connections carve out a Bill-shaped space on the network, and this space will only slowly fade away after I die.

If Google and the other search engines index it more fully, as they plan to do, then it could last a very long time and my ghost will haunt the network for many years.

Of course I won't be alone. Not only my friends, but my ancestors will be joining me. We are rapidly reaching the point where information that is not digitised - and therefore searchable - simply stops being useful or used. Fortunately more and more old books, newspapers and other paper records are scanned and digitised and made available online.

Mormons believe that the dead can be baptised into their religion and that doing so removes an obstacle to their salvation. Perhaps the search engines can perform a similar service for reputations rather than souls.

MySpace launches net music store

MySpace has unveiled an online music store that lets its US members listen for free but pay for downloads.

The ad-funded service is free to listen on a computer.

The ad-funded service lets MySpace members listen to streamed tracks on their PC for free and build up long playlists of their favourite tracks.

Users must buy a copy of a track from the music store of partner Amazon to enjoy it on a portable player.

The service hopes to cash in on the long-standing link between MySpace and new and established bands.

Cash call

The service has been launched with backing from the big four music labels - Sony BMG, Universal, Warner and EMI - plus independent music group The Orchard.

The move is widely being seen as a snub to Apples' iTunes, which is the dominant player in the online music market.

It is known that record labels are frustrated with Apple's refusal to charge higher prices for more popular tracks. On Amazon's music store, which is only available in the US, tracks start at $0.79 (£0.42)

At launch MySpace Music only has a few thousand tracks available but said this will grow to many millions as the partner labels open up their archives to it.

All the tracks sold will be free of copyright protection mechanisms known as Digital Rights Management software.

News that MySpace was working on a music store leaked in April 2007 and the launch was delayed as negotiations with record label EMI dragged on.

It is estimated that about five million bands and artists have a profile page on MySpace and the site has helped launch the career of many up and coming musicians and help them stay in touch with fans.

As well as making cash from adverts running on the page through which people choose the music they listen to the service will also generate revenue from ringtones, concert tickets and merchandise.

"The big question is whether they can change their environment so people will want to do their shopping as well as their gossiping [at MySpace]," said James McQuivey, research analyst at Forrester.

Mr McQuivey doubted whether the site would become a big source of revenue for MySpace as studies suggest that people do not watch their computer when using it to stream music.

The opening of the store won criticism from Charles Caldas, head of independent rights body Merlin.

Mr Caldas said it was "incredibly disappointing" that the service launched without finalising a deal with the biggest independent labels and artists.

Merlin's members, which includes Koch, Beggars Group and Domino, have a 9% share of the US music market - roughly equivalent to EMI's market share.

US military, economic policies the real threat: Ahmadinejad

ranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday lashed out at what he called US military aggression, as Russia backed away from a six-power meeting to discuss new sanctions against Teheran.

Ahead of a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Iranian leader defended his confrontational stand against the West and Israel, saying that his country faced aggression.

"I'd like to ask you, is it the Iranian (army) that's around the territories around the country, or is it the US troops that are around?" he asked during an interview on National Public Radio.

"It is the US troops around our borders. It is not ours around the American borders. So what exactly are they doing over there?"

Referring to a global financial crisis sparked by the banking meltdown on Wall Street, Ahmadinejad also told the Los Angeles Times that "the world economy can no longer tolerate the budgetary deficit and the financial pressures."

Despite three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions, Iran continues to defy calls by the United States and its Western allies to halt uranium enrichment -- a process the West and Israel fear is being used to make an atomic bomb.

Iran says it aims to have only peaceful civilian nuclear energy.

However, with the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- divided, Ahmadinejad is unlikely to face significantly tougher UN action soon.

"We do not believe that the US policy perspective, looking at the rest of the world as a field of confrontation, will give good results," he told the Los Angeles Times.

In the latest evidence of splits among world powers, Russia's foreign ministry rejected a US-led call for a new meeting on Iran.

"We do not see any fire that requires us to toss everything aside and meet to discuss Iran's nuclear program in the middle of a packed week at the United Nations General Assembly," the ministry said in a statement.

Iranian-American opponents gathered near UN headquarters in New York to protest against what they described as the government's human rights abuses and suppression of democratic opposition.

A separate rally was due nearby by the organization StopWarOnIran.org, which accuses President George W. Bush of pushing for a war on Iran.

Ahmadinejad firmly placed the blame for world tensions on Washington and maintained his controversial stand that Israel has no future, describing the Jewish state as "an airplane that has lost its engine."

"Problems do not arise suddenly," he told the LA Times.

"The US government has made a series of mistakes in the past few decades. First, the imposition on the US economy of heavy military engagement and involvement around the world ... the war in Iraq, for example ... these are heavy costs."

Ahmadinejad, who has previously called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," also proposed Israel be transformed into a single state including returned Palestinian refugees, who would vastly outnumber the now dominant Jewish population, the LA Times reported.

Israel's President Shimon Peres, also at the United Nations, shot back, saying "I do not think (Ahmadinejad) has a future."

Peres accused the Iranian leader of wanting "the world to return to the darkness, hatred, threats, arrogance."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been planning to meet on the sidelines of the UN assembly with colleagues from Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany -- the "P5+1" group.

The United States wants to impose new sanctions against Iran, but Russia and China are resisting the move.

The UN atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, called on Iran Monday to clear up allegations it had been involved in studies to make a nuclear warhead.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei published a report last week in which he accused Iran of stalling a UN investigation into its disputed nuclear program, refusing access to documents, individuals and sites.

Israel's Livni asked to form new government

Israeli President Shimon Peres asked Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Monday to form a new government, a day after scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert officially stepped down.

Livni, 50, a former Mossad spy who replaced Olmert as head of the centrist Kadima party in a leadership vote on Wednesday, is hoping to become Israel's second woman prime minister after Golda Meir, who served from 1969 to 1974.

"After consultations with the political parties, the president has asked Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni to form a government," public radio quoted an official statement as saying.

Livni now has 42 days to form a governing coalition in order to avert snap elections that polls indicate would bring the right-wing Likud party of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power.

Livni called on Netanyahu to join her in a government of national unity, although the opposition leader has repeatedly ruled out becoming a junior partner in a new coalition and has demanded early elections.

Livni warned that Israel risked a long period of political uncertainty if other parties did not rally to a new government.

She has already begun talks with parliamentary factions that could be included in a future coalition, while at the same time pressing members of her own party to close ranks.

But in the rough and tumble of shifting allegiances in Israeli politics, there is no guarantee that she will be able to muster a parliamentary majority.

The Labour party, the main partner in the current coalition, has sent mixed signals, having met Netanyahu over the weekend and called for either early elections or a "national emergency government."

Livni met Labour chief Defence Minister Ehud Barak hours after Olmert formally submitted his resignation and offered to make the party a "full partner" in a new coalition, according to the Haaretz newspaper quoting unnamed Livni aides.

Meanwhile the ultra-Orthodox party Shas -- which has frequently played the role of kingmaker -- has vowed to leave any government that negotiates the future of Jerusalem, a key issue in efforts to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Livni also faces tough challenges in seeking to unify Kadima after new rifts emerged in the wake of her narrow victory over transport minister and former army chief Shaul Mofaz.

Formed less than three years ago, the centrist party has been dogged by allegations of corruption.

Olmert's decision to resign after just 32 months in office followed months of pressure from supporters and rivals alike in the face of a string of graft allegations against him.

Police have recommended criminal charges against the 62-year-old in two cases in which he is accused of accepting large sums in cash from a US financier and multiple-billing foreign trips.

He has denied any wrongdoing.

The continuing political turmoil has cast a shadow over Israeli peace talks with the Palestinians which were revived only in November, further denting hopes of a deal by the end of this year.

Both sides remain deeply divided on core issues, including final borders, Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the fate of 4.6 million Palestinian refugees and the future status of Jerusalem.

Shas's refusal to negotiate the fate of Jerusalem could prove particularly tough for Livni, who is currently the lead negotiator for Israel.

The Palestinians want Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 Six Day War, as the capital of their future state.

Israel, however, considers the entire city to be its "eternal, undivided" capital, a claim not recognised by the international community.

IAEA turns up heat on Iran over alleged nuclear weapons work

The UN atomic watchdog pressed Iran on Monday to disprove allegations of past nuclear weapons work, saying Tehran should not be concerned about divulging sensitive information because its confidential.

Iran cannot simply dismiss all the charges as "fabricated," the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, told a meeting of the body's 35-member board. Tehran must "clarify the extent to which the documentation is factually correct and where, as it asserts, such information may have been fabricated or relates to non-nuclear purposes," ElBaradei said on the first day of a week-long board meeting.

Neither could the Islamic republic hide behind the argument that in order to respond to the accusations, it would have to divulge information pertinent to its national security, the IAEA chief said.

The nuclear watchdog was not seeking to "pry" into Iran's conventional or missile-related military activities, he said.

"We need, however, to make use of all relevant information to be able to confirm that no nuclear material is being used for nuclear weapons purposes," ElBaradei said.

"I am confident that arrangements can be developed which enable the agency to do its work while ensuring that Iran's legitimate right to protect the confidentiality of sensitive information and activities is respected," he said.

After six years of intensive investigation, the IAEA still has not been able to determine whether the activities are entirely peaceful, as Iran claims.

The main hurdle is the "alleged studies", referring to documentation found on a laptop in Iran which suggest Tehran may have been trying to develop a nuclear warhead, convert uranium and test high explosives and a missile re-entry vehicle.

Iran has consistently dismissed the allegations as "baseless" and the documentation used to back them up as "fabricated".

But the IAEA insists the onus is on Iran to disprove the allegations.

Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, complained that Iran had not been allowed to see any of the documentation supposedly backing up the allegations.

"How come we can question a country without giving authentic documents? A member state is accused by another member state, but that member state has not given any documents or evidence," he told reporters. Another major concern remains Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, a process which can be used to make the fissile material for a nuclear bomb, ElBaradei said.

Instead, Iran had installed additional cascades of uranium-enriching centrifuges, bringing the number up and running to close to 4,000, and was testing more advanced centrifuges as well.

So far, Iran's enrichment plant in Natanz has produced a total of 480 kilogrammes (1,058 pounds) of low-enriched uranium or LEU, it said.

It would need 1,700 kilogrammes to convert into high-enriched uranium (HEU) for use in an atom bomb, a UN official said.

On the matter of Syria, which the United States alleges had been building a secret nuclear facility until it was destroyed in a bombing raid by Israel last year, ElBaradei said the IAEA was still in the process of analysing and evaluating samples taken during a visit to Al-Kibar in a remote desert area of northeastern Syria on the Euphrates River.

"Samples taken from the site are still being analysed and evaluated by the agency, but so far we have found no indication of any nuclear material," he said.

Turning to North Korea, the director general revealed that Pyonyang had asked the IAEA to remove seals and surveillance equipment from its Yongbyon nuclear plant. North Korea said last week that it was working to restart its atomic reactor at Yongbyon and no longer wanted US concessions promised under a landmark deal in June in return for its denuclearisation.

The hardline communist regime stopped work to disable its Yongbyon complex last month and said last Friday that it was working to restart the plutonium-producing reactor.

IAEA inspectors "have observed ... that some equipment previously removed by the DPRK during the disablement process has been brought back," ElBaradei said.

Nevertheless, "this has not changed the shutdown status of the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon," he added.

South Africa's Mbeki to address nation after agreeing to resign

President Thabo Mbeki was to address the nation on Sunday after agreeing to resign following calls from his ANC party to step down, leaving South Africa with political uncertainty ahead of elections expected next year.

Mbeki said on Saturday he will step down "as soon as all constitutional requirements have been fulfilled" after calls by the African National Congress national executive committee for him to go.

It is believed the ANC is not ready to call an election earlier than those set down for April 2009, and that the party will appoint an interim president to lead the country for the remainder of the second term.

"They (the ANC) want to avoid an early election at all cost. They are not ready. They need time to rectify things and renew their relationship with the electorate," political analyst Judith February told AFP.

Mbeki, 66, who succeeded Nelson Mandela as president in June 1999, has been under fire over allegations that he influenced the pressing of corruption charges against ANC leader and political rival Jacob Zuma.

"The ANC has decided to recall the president of the republic before his mandate has expired," the ANC's secretary general Gwede Mantashe told journalists after a meeting of the party leadership.

"Our decision has been concluded, the formalities are now subject to the parliamentary process," Mantashe said, adding that Mbeki "didn't express shock, he welcomed the news.

"We have communicated our decision (to Mbeki) and that we will be going through parliamentary process. He has agreed to participate in that process."

Government spokesman Themba Maseko said a cabinet meeting had been called for Sunday afternoon, and afterwards Mbeki would "speak to the nation" in a live broadcast on radio and television.

It will be Mbeki's first direct speech to the public since he took to television screens across the country in the wake of anti-foreigner killings which rocked the country in May.

Under the South African constitution, the president is appointed by parliament, which has been dominated by the ANC since the end of apartheid and the start of majority rule in May 1994.

Mbeki's term formally expires in mid-2009. South African media said Sunday Mbeki's resignation left South Africa's leaders with the arduous task of rebuilding a messy political scene, while analysts said several cabinet ministers may follow in his footsteps.

Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya likened events leading up to Mbeki's agreeing to resign to a constitutional coup d'etat.

Makhanya compared the week's events to those in 1989 when PW Botha was forced to relinquish power of the white minority ruling National Party after a stroke, to reformist FW De Klerk who eventually led the country toward democracy.

"Today we are seeing similar scenes play themselves out. A once-feared Mbeki is being removed from office by people who had trembled before him."

Mbeki's fate was all but sealed after a September 12 court ruling that cleared Zuma of corruption charges and hinted that Mbeki's government had interfered in the decision to prosecute him.

The dismissal of the charges on a technicality cleared the way for Zuma to become South Africa's president in elections next year.

The main allegation against Zuma had been that he received bribes for protecting French arms company Thint in an investigation into a controversial weapons deal.

Judge Chris Nicholson said the decision to throw out the case was not a reflection of Zuma's guilt or innocence, but a technical decision based on his right to make representations before being recharged.

Mantashe said the decision to ask Mbeki to stand down was taken in the interest of party unity.

"This is not a punishment," he said. "We decided to take this decision in an effort to heal and reunite the ANC."

Israel's Olmert announces resignation amid lingering turmoil

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his resignation on Sunday, but the political uncertainty gripping Israel and casting a shadow over US-backed Middle East peace talks is far from over.

"I have decided to end my functions as prime minister of the government of Israel," Olmert told a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, days after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was elected leader of their centrist Kadima party.

"I hope that Tzipi Livni will succeed in forming a national government with the composition she wants," Olmert said in remarks broadcast on television. "For my part I will help her with all my strength."

Olmert has been battling the corruption allegations for several months, and on July 30 he said he would step down once his party chose a new leader.

But he must still submit his resignation to President Shimon Peres, who will then grant Livni 42 days to form a government and avert snap general elections, which polls indicate would bring the right-wing Likud party to power.

Peres was due to travel to New York this week to attend the UN General Assembly, and it was unclear whether he would be able to formally appoint Livni to form a new government before his departure.

Olmert is meanwhile likely to stay on as interim premier until a new government is sworn in, which could take several months.

The Kadima leadership result confirmed Livni's meteoric rise to become the most powerful woman in Israel, and could now see her follow in the footsteps of Golda Meir, the country's first woman prime minister.

But the turmoil unleashed by the allegations dogging Olmert also threatens to derail US-backed peace talks with the Palestinians that were relaunched last November but have made little tangible progress since.

As foreign minister, Livni has led the negotiations, which were formally relaunched 10 months ago with the stated goal of ending the decades-old conflict by the end of the year.

But the two sides remain deeply divided on core issues, including final borders, Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the future status of Jerusalem and the fate of some 4.6 million Palestinian refugees.

The negotiations could complicate Livni's efforts to form a new coalition, with the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party -- a key partner in Olmert's administration -- having vowed to quit the government if Jerusalem is even discussed.

"No one, not even Olmert, has any political or moral authority to push any controversial decisions right now," Shas Chairman Eli Yishai said before the cabinet meeting, according to the Ynet news service.

Shas has also called for a big rise in family grants, something Livni has up to now rejected.

The Palestinians want mostly Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 Six Day War, as the capital of their future state.

Israel, however, considers the entire city to be its "eternal, undivided" capital, a claim not recognised by the international community.

Meanwhile Labour party head Ehud Barak -- another key member of Olmert's coalition -- met Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend, with local media speculating about a possible anti-Livni alliance.

"In view of the political, financial and security challenges we face, what Israel needs now is a national emergency government," Barak, Israel's defence minister, said ahead of the cabinet meeting, according to Ynet.

Netanyahu supports holding general elections, which would probably result in his becoming prime minister, while Barak has not yet adopted a clear position on the matter.

IAEA shows photos alleging Iran worked on missile

The UN nuclear watchdog has shown its members documents and photographs suggesting that Iran secretly tried to modify a missile cone to carry a nuclear bomb, diplomats said.

Diplomats who attended a special briefing Tuesday said the IAEA's head of inspections in the Middle East, Herman Naeckerts, had shown them new proof indicating that Iran tried to refit the long-distance Shahab-3 missile to carry a nuclear payload.

The US envoy to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, said Naeckerts showed photos and diagrams of Iranian work on re-designing a Shabab-3 "to carry what would appear to be a nuclear weapon. "The Secretariat told us the information they have is, in their words, 'very credible', unquote, and they have asked Iran to provide 'substantive responses', unquote", Schulte said. Iran has refused IAEA requests to interview engineers involved in the work and visit their ostensibly civilian workshops.

For its part, Iran continued to assert that the intelligence was forged.

Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh complained Tehran was being pressured to disprove the allegations by revealing information vital to its national security.

"No country would give information about its conventional military activities", he said.

"I said in this briefing, 'Who in the world would believe there are a series of top secret documents US intelligence found in a laptop regarding a Manhattan Project-type nuclear (bomb programme) in Iran and none of these documents bore seals of 'high confidential' or 'secret'?" he said. "This matter is over, as far as we are concerned".

Olmert to resign on Sunday: spokesman

:Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will resign on Sunday in the wake of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's victory in a Kadima party leadership election, Olmert's spokesman said on Saturday.

Olmert planned to announce the decision at Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting before formally submitting his resignation to President Shimon Peres ahead of the latter's trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly meeting.

"The prime minister will announce his resignation during the cabinet meeting and then deliver his letter of resignation to President Shimon Peres in accordance with the law," Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev told AFP.

The embattled premier has been dogged by a series of corruption allegations for several months, and on July 30 said he would step down once a new leader was chosen in the unprecedented party vote.

Livni, who narrowly defeated Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz in Wednesday's vote, has 42 days to form a governing coalition in order to avert snap general elections, which would be held three months later.

Olmert will continue to serve as interim prime minister until a new government is formed, which could take weeks or even months.

As foreign minister, Livni has been leading peace talks with the Palestinians relaunched at a US-hosted conference in November and aimed at securing a comprehensive agreement ending the decades-old conflict by 2009.

She is viewed as a strong supporter of the peace process, but if general elections are held the opposition right-wing Likud party is expected to win the most seats, putting the future of the negotiations in doubt.

Nigerian militants claim new attack on Shell pipeline

he main armed rebel group in Nigeria's oil-rich south on Saturday claimed to have destroyed a major pipeline belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the sixth such attack in less than a week.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main group fighting for a greater share of the region's oil wealth for local people, said the attack took place on Friday on a "major pipeline" in Rivers state.

"The military and the government of Nigeria whose unprovoked attack on our position prompted this oil war are no match for a guerrilla insurgency of this kind," it said.

The MEND, which launched an "oil war" on Sunday, said it "will continue to nibble every day at the oil infrastructure in Nigeria until the oil exports reach zero."

Russia against new UN measures on Iran for now

Russia is against the United Nations taking any extra measures on Iran over its nuclear programme for now, and thinks efforts towards dialogue should continue, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

The comments came after talks between majors powers over a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran ended with no firm commitment on Friday.

Western countries fear Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies.

"On the Russian side, we underlined the necessity of continuing efforts to include Tehran in a constructive dialogue aimed at launching a process of talks," the ministry said.

"In this context we spoke against the development of extra measures by the UN Security Council at this stage."

The United States, Britain, France and Germany are pushing for harsher measures over Tehran's defiance of UN demands for full disclosure and a halt to uranium enrichment, which can have both civilian and military purposes.

Russia and China however have been resisting such moves.

Nepal Maoist chief heads to US to meet Bush, address UN

The Maoist prime minister of Nepal, the world's newest republic, left on Saturday for the United States where he was due to meet President George W Bush and address the United Nations.

Prime Minister Prachanda is expected to meet Bush despite the former rebel Maoists remaining on the US list of terrorist organisations, a foreign ministry official said.

"We have received a formal invitation to attend a dinner hosted by President Bush," a foreign ministry official said, adding Prachanda would reach New York on Monday.

Prachanda was a wanted guerrilla in the impoverished Himalayan nation until a 2006 peace deal that paved the way for his party to win polls earlier this year.

"The international community needs to change their perspective about Nepal," said the prime minister, whose nom-de-guerre means "the fierce one," before he left.

"I am taking a message of a new republican Nepal to the UN general assembly."

Interpol pushes Afghanistan to record 'terrorist' prisoners

Around half the 2,000 prisoners who escaped worldwide in the past three years broke out of jails in Afghanistan, where many of the escapees were 'terrorists', the Interpol chief said Friday.

Ronald K. Noble, secretary general of the international policy agency, was in Afghanistan to push authorities to start fingerprinting and photographing prisoners for input into a global database to track dangerous escapees.

In the past three years more than 2,000 prisoners had escaped globally, Noble told AFP in an interview. They had fled in 62 prison escapes in 43 countries, according to statistics provided separately by Interpol.

"In many of those countries the prison escapes have been of convicted terrorists for whom there have been no arrest warrants issued, for whom there have been no photographs circulated," Noble said.

In Afghanistan there have been three major escapes, two in 2006 and one in the southern city of Kandahar in June this year when the insurgent Taliban militia used several suicide bombers to blow open the main prison.

"Almost 1,000 total people have escaped (in Afghanistan) and of those... close to 400 to 500 would be terrorists. A substantial number," Noble said. Interpol had however only been able to get basic details, like the names and places of birth, of about a third of the nearly 1,000 who had escaped, among them Taliban and al Qaeda militants, said Noble, the most senior Interpol official to visit Afghanistan.

He said he had secured a commitment from Afghan officials to fingerprint and photograph every person arrested for a terrorist-related activity.

Friends of Pakistan Conference would be held in New York on September 26 in a bid to evolve a comprehensive strategy to provide economic package to Pa

Nato may "step up" its planning and training to defend the 26-nation bloc's territory, the alliance's head said Friday, amid tensions between the West and Moscow over the recent Georgia-Russia conflict.

But speaking in London after a meeting of Nato defence ministers, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said there was no reason for alarm.

The Nato ministers including US Defence Secretary Robert Gates "concluded that planning and training for collective defence of Nato territory is what this alliance has done for 60 years," he said.

"We may step up some elements here or there," he told reporters, before adding that "planning and training for collective defence is, for Nato ... business as usual."

"No one should be surprised or alarmed, in other words."

His comments come amid a deep chill between the West and Moscow, which earlier Friday accused Nato of provoking last month's conflict between Georgia and Russia, an accusation the alliance has refuted.

The Nato defence ministers' meeting focused on transforming the alliance from a Cold War security grouping to a more flexibile regional bloc, though De Hoop Scheffer stressed that the discussions had not led to any formal decisions.

Obama rips into 'panicked' McCain as Wall St crisis mounts

Democrat Barack Obama on Friday said his "panicked" White House rival John McCain was flailing at a time of financial crisis and said a government rescue for Wall Street must shield regular Americans too.

The rivals navigated a presidential race transformed by the global economic storm as President George W. Bush's administration readied the biggest rescue package in decades for the crippled financial sector.

Obama said he would present his own detailed recovery blueprint once the Treasury and Federal Reserve plan is known, as McCain proposed a trust to intervene before financial institutions approach bankruptcy.

The Republican also laid into Obama, accusing him of taking campaign cash and counsel from some of the big-business architects of the crisis.

"Senator Obama may be taking their advice and he may be taking their money, but in a McCain-Palin administration, there will be no seat for these people at the policy-making table," McCain said of his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

"This is the problem with Washington, people like Senator Obama have been too busy gaming the system and haven't ever done a thing to actually challenge the system," he said in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

"Maybe just this once he could spare us the lectures, and admit to his own poor judgment in contributing to these problems."

Obama, at a rally in Florida where he assailed McCain on women's issues, said that in the Republican's speech, "his big solution to this worldwide economic crisis was to blame me for it."

"This is a guy who's spent nearly three decades in Washington. After spending the entire campaign saying I haven't been in Washington long enough, he apparently now is willing to assign me responsibility for all of Washington's failings," he said.

"I think it's pretty clear that Senator McCain is a little panicked right now. At this point he seems to be willing to say anything, or do anything, or change any position, or violate any principle to try and win this election."

Obama's rally came after he convened a meeting in Coral Gables, Florida of his top economic advisers including former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, and ex-Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

The Illinois senator, who has bounced back into a lead of a few points in the race ahead of the November 4 election, according to national polls, called for calm and bipartisanship.

"John McCain and I can continue to argue about our different economic agendas for next year, but we should come together now to work on what this country urgently needs this year," he said.

While the Democrat appealed for an "emergency economic plan for working families," McCain said Obama was being advised by former top executives at the scandal-ridden Fannie Mae mortgage giant, which was taken over by the government this month.

Obama's campaign in turn pointed to the presence of seven influential former corporate lobbyists at the highest ranks of McCain's campaign staff, as each side vied to portray the other as beholden to vested interests.

McCain expanded Friday on his plan for a Mortgage and Financial Institutions trust.

"The MFI is an early intervention program to help financial institutions avoid bankruptcy, expensive bailouts and damage to their customers," he said, battling to stay on the offensive after a week of adverse media coverage.

Obama recapped McCain's evolution from Monday, when he said the US economy was fundamentally "strong," via his opposition Tuesday to any bailout for the giant insurer American International Group, to backing the government's rescue deal for AIG Wednesday.

By the end of the week, the Democrat said scornfully, McCain was railing against corporate greed after a career spent pushing for less government regulation of companies including Wall Street banks.

Obama noted mounting anxiety as many voters see their pensions wiped out by the tumult in the financial sector, but stressed: "This isn't a time for fear or panic. This is a time for resolve and for leadership. "I know we can steer ourselves out of this crisis."

Khamenei raps Ahmadinejad aide but urges end to row

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denounced Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, the aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who said Iran was a friend of the Israeli people, but also urged an end to the war of words.

"Someone made a statement about people who live in Israel. It was an inaccurate statement," Khamenei said in his sermon on Friday at the main weekly Muslim prayers in Tehran.

"To say that we are friends of the Israeli people like all the other people of the world is not fair comment, it is an illogical comment," he said in the sermon broadcast live on state television.

"Someone said something false and there were reactions. These should end," the leader said, calling on opponents of the government to end debate "on this minor question".

Khamenei said Israelis have "usurped the houses, land, fields and businesses" of Palestinians.

"It is Israeli people who inhabit the settlements and which the puppet Zionist government arms against the Palestinians," he said.

"The Islamic republic's position is very clear. We have no problem with Jews, Christians or the faithful of other religions, but we have a problem with the usurpers of the land of Palestine," he said.

Mashaie, vice president in charge of the tourist board, said in mid-July that Iran is a "friend of the Israeli people". He returned to the theme in August, saying he had "no hostility against the Israeli people."

The remarks prompted fierce criticism from leading religious and political leaders, notably in his own conservative faction, which called for his dismissal.

On Thursday, the president, whose son is married to Mashaie's daughter, defended his associate by insisting he had been misquoted by the media and never made the offending comments.

Ahmadinejad also rejected the views of religious leaders on the topic.

Georgian PM in London as Nato mulls response to Russia

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown reiterated support for Georgia Friday as Nato defence ministers resumed talks aimed at agreeing how to respond to Russia's invasion of its ex-Soviet neighbour.

Brown met Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze in his Downing Street Office, as the Nato ministers including US Defence Secretary Robert Gates held a second of closed-door talks nearby overshadowed by the Russia-Georgia crisis.

"We have been able to say to him that we are in full support of the territorial integrity of Georgia and we will be giving financial and economic support to Georgia, and urging other countries to do so," said Brown.

"We will be working with our European partners to ensure that there is sufficient support for the reconstruction of Georgia," he added, speaking after the talks with Gurgenidze.

The Georgian premier was also due to meet Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Chancellor Alistair Darling. Georgian efforts to become part of Nato have infuriated Russia, which objects to the prospect of its old Cold War foe extending so close to its borders.

The meetings came after both Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates spoke cautiously Thursday on how to respond to Russia following the conflict last month.

The chief of the military alliance said he foresaw "no U-turn in Nato policy" despite uncertainty about Russian intentions and said the Georgia conflict would not be resolved "if we seek to punish Russia".

Gates, meanwhile, urged Nato to avoid provocation in its response to Russia, adding he thought concern among members on the issue "has more to do with pressure and intimidation than it does any prospect of real military action".

"I think we need to proceed with some caution because there is clearly a range of views in the alliance about how to respond, from some of our friends in the Baltics and eastern Europe to some of the countries in western Europe," Gates said Thursday.

Brown told Sky News television that supporting Georgian and Ukrainian membership was "the right thing to do".

"If a sovereign country, free to make its own decisions, wishes to be part of a democratic group that has quite clear principles attached to its membership then we should be prepared to look at that," he said.