Iran nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri 'defects to US'

An Iranian nuclear scientist who has been missing since June has defected to the US, according to a US media report.

ABC News said Shahram Amiri had been resettled in the US and was helping the CIA in its efforts to block Iran's nuclear programme.
Mr Amiri disappeared in Saudi Arabia while on a Muslim pilgrimage.
Iran accused the US of abducting him but Washington denied any knowledge of the scientist. The CIA has declined to comment on the latest report.
Mr Amiri worked as a researcher at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, according to Iran's state-run Press TV channel.
However, some reports said he had also been employed by Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, and had wanted to seek asylum abroad.
CIA operation?
The US and its Western allies suspect Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons - a claim denied by Tehran.
According to ABC, the scientist has been extensively debriefed, and has helped to confirm US intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear programme.
His defection was apparently the result of a wider operation, under which the US has been approaching Iranian scientists, sometimes through relatives living in America, to try to persuade them to defect.
By making this defection public, it appears the Americans are putting more psychological pressure on the Iranian authorities, says the a news channel in Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, who is in London.
Iran's nuclear programme is the subject of extensive intelligence work in the West with the aims of gathering information on it, preventing Iran buying equipment for it and, reportedly, sabotaging the programme by selling Iran defective parts on the black market, our correspondent says.
Quite how important Mr Amiri is, or what information he can provide, has not emerged, our correspondent adds.

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Kapoor designs 2012 Orbit tower

A spiralling sculpture designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor has been chosen as the monument to mark the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The 115m tall piece, named the ArcelorMittal Orbit, will be placed in the Olympic Park and will be 22m higher than New York's Statue of Liberty.
The £19.1m design incorporates the five Olympic rings and will offer visitors panoramic views of London.
London Mayor Boris Johnson revealed plans for the tower on Wednesday.
"I am deeply honoured to be invited to undertake this challenging commission," Kapoor said.
"I am particularly attracted to it because of the opportunity to involve members of the public in a particularly close and personal way. It is the commission of a lifetime."
The artist will work with leading structural designer, Cecil Balmond of engineering firm Arup.
Organisers said Balmond had worked on "some of the greatest contemporary buildings in the world", including the CCTV building in Beijing, as well as numerous Serpentine Gallery pavilion commissions.
''Long after the Games are over, our aim is to have a stunning spectacle in east London that will be recognised around the world," Mr Johnson said.
"Anish Kapoor's inspired art work will truly encapsulate the energy and spirit of London during the Games and, as such, will become the perfect iconic cultural legacy."
Steel company ArcelorMittal - owned by steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal - will fund up to £16m of the project with £3.1m provided by the London Development Agency.

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BT flood knocks out broadband and phone services

A major flood at a BT exchange in Paddington, London has affected broadband and telephone services across the UK.

In a statement BT said it could not predict when either service would be restored.
"Tens of thousands" of customers have been affected, said the firm, with the majority in north and west London.
London Fire Brigade attended the incident at 7.30am on 31 March. The flood was caused by an electric fault.
The fault also caused a fire.
The BBC was alerted to the fault by IT consultant Jerry Sanders, who said customers as far afield as Potters Bar, Hertfordshire and Nottingham were reporting problems with Pipex UK broadband coverage.
Pipex UK's parent company TalkTalk said that its service had been affected by the incident.
Some mobile phone services may also be affected, a BT spokesperson said.

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Meningitis vaccine gives travellers immunity

A new meningitis vaccine which protects against four major strains of the disease is available in Europe for the first time.

The vaccine, called Menveo, is likely to be used as a travel vaccine to protect people from contracting meningitis in sub-Saharan Africa.
A large section of Africa is known as the Meningitis Belt because of the severity of meningitis epidemics there.
The vaccine will offer longer lasting protection against the disease.
The new vaccine is a conjugate vaccine which can bring about herd immunity - that is, it can protect people who have not been vaccinated by cutting circulating levels of the bacteria in the community.
It also offers better protection in infants and young children.
Widespread cases
The predominant strains of meningitis vary across the world.
In certain parts of Africa the A strain causes a huge toll of illness and death. Cases of W-135, once considered rare, are also increasing.
 The Y-strain is common in the US and is increasingly being seen in South America.
Researchers have begun to warn that epidemics are occurring in countries like Tanzania, Kenya and Namibia too.
Widespread cases have also been seen in some parts of South Africa.
The next step
Dr Jane Zuckerman is director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Travel Medicine at the University College London Medical School.
She said: "Travellers should consider visiting a specialist travel health centre where they can be advised and provided with expert knowledge on the diseases they might be exposed to and the vaccines and medicines they require to keep well."
Children in the UK have been routinely vaccinated against meningitis C since 2000, but there is no routine vaccination in the UK against the other strains.
Linda Glennie, who is head of research at the Meningitis Research Foundation, welcomed the new vaccine.
She said the next step was to find out "if this vaccine has a potential wider use than just travel".
Menveo is made by Novartis Vaccine and Diagnostics and has a licence for use in people aged 11 years and over.
At least one other drug company is expected to launch a similar vaccine soon.

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Breast cancer screening does 'more good than harm'

Breast cancer screening does more good than harm, with any over-treatment justified by the number of lives saved, a study of 80,000 women has concluded.

Mammograms can spot dangerous tumours, but might also detect lumps that are essentially harmless, exposing some women to undue anxiety and surgery.
This has led to a debate among experts about the benefits of breast screening.
But this study suggests screening saves the lives of two women for every one who may have unnecessary treatment.
Screening extension
More than 45,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK, and more than 12,000 die from the disease.
Women aged 50 to 70 are invited for NHS breast screening every three years across the UK.
In England from 2012 screening will be extended to women aged from 47 to 73.

The study by experts from the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry appears in the Journal of Medical Screening.
It focused on data from 80,000 women from the age of 50, and looked at data from Sweden and England before and after the introduction of screening.
The research estimated that 5.7 breast cancer deaths were prevented for every 1,000 women screened over a 20-year period in England.
At the same time, 2.3 women per 1,000 were told they had a lump but it was not clear if it was an aggressive form of cancer that needed to be treated.
Put another way, for every 28 cases diagnosed, 2.5 lives were saved and one case was over-diagnosed.
'Significant reduction'
The authors of this latest study say the benefits of breast screening are clear.
"The benefits in terms of numbers of deaths prevented are around double the harm in terms of over-diagnosis.
"Analysis shows a substantial and significant reduction in breast cancer deaths in association with mammographic screening," they said.

England's NHS screening programme has been rewriting its leaflet for patients after concerns it did not provide enough explanation for women about their choices.
A new version of the leaflet will be published by this summer.
Richard Winder, deputy director of NHS cancer screening programmes, said: "There is a risk of over-diagnosis, and possible subsequent over-treatment, associated with any screening programme.
"But this latest, independent study shows that the risk of over-diagnosis is very much lower than some other recent estimates have claimed, and that the benefits far outweigh the risks."
Calculations 'opaque'
Sara Hiom of Cancer Research UK says she hoped the latest study would reassure women that screening was valuable.
"What we need to remember of course is that detecting cancers earlier generally means improved survival. And we know through trials and through research that breast screening can save lives," she said.
Emma Pennery, clinical director at Breast Cancer Care, said it was aware the ongoing debate over the effectiveness of screening could cause "confusion and anxiety for women".
"This robust study clearly reinforces that screening remains an effective option for detecting breast cancers," she said.
However, Jayant Vaidya, a breast cancer surgeon at University College London and the Whittington Hospital, said the study was based on calculations that were opaque.
"Women who go for breast cancer screening need to know that there's a good chance they could be diagnosed with a cancer which is not harmful and may never have bothered them," he said.

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Eurozone unemployment rate rises to 10%

The unemployment rate across the 16-nation eurozone hit 10% in February, the first time it has reached double figures since the euro was introduced.

The jobless figures, from the Eurostat agency, showed large variations between nations in the eurozone.
The unemployment rate was 19% in Spain, whereas in the Netherlands, the rate was just 4%.
Separate figures showed eurozone inflation hit a 15-month high in March, rising to 1.5% from 0.9% in February.
The inflation figure was higher than expected, with analysts blaming recent rises in energy prices for the increase.
However, inflation still remains below the European Central Bank's inflation target of just below 2%, and analysts do not expect the bank to change its key interest rate from 1% for several months.
Spending hopes
The rise in the unemployment rate is being seen as a further sign that the eurozone's recovery from recession remains slow.
The Eurostat figures showed that 15.749 million people were unemployed in the eurozone during February, up 61,000 from the month before.
Across the 27-nation European Union, the unemployment rate rose to 9.6% in February, from 9.5% in January.
Separate figures from Germany on Wednesday indicated that unemployment there was falling.
Federal Labour Office figures showed the jobless total fell by 31,000 in March to a seasonally adjusted total of 3.382 million, with the unemployment rate dropping to 8% from 8.1%.
"This... brings some hope that the much-needed recovery in German consumer spending could yet materialise," said Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at Capital Economics.

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Pakistan to ask Switzerland to reopen Zardari cases

Pakistan's anti-corruption agency is to ask Switzerland to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Zardari.

The move came after Pakistan's Supreme Court said it would jail the head of the agency if he did not take action.
Mr Zardari and his late wife, former PM Benazir Bhutto, were convicted by a Swiss court in a $15m money-laundering case in 2003. They denied the charges.
Pakistan withdrew from the Swiss case soon after Mr Zardari's Pakistan People's Party came to power in 2008.
But an amnesty protecting Mr Zardari and other top officials from prosecution was annulled by the Supreme Court in December.
Court pressure
The court has been demanding corruption cases be reopened ever since, several of them involving President Zardari.
Before taking office, he spent years in jail after being convicted on corruption charges he says were politically motivated.
His political allies face possible prosecution in Pakistan, but he is still protected by presidential immunity.
If the Swiss authorities accede to the Pakistani request, he faces being investigated for corruption while in office.
On Tuesday Pakistan's Supreme Court threatened to jail the head of the country's anti-corruption agency unless he reopens hundreds of corruption cases.
It said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman Naveed Ahsan would be in contempt of court if he did not act within 24 hours.
"In light of directions of the court on the revival of the Swiss cases, the NAB has initiated the process," Abid Zuberi, a lawyer for the agency, told the court on Wednesday.
The Swiss Justice Ministry said it had yet to receive any request from Pakistan.

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Afghanistan bombing kills 13 in busy Helmand market

A bomb explosion in a crowded village market in the south Afghan province of Helmand has killed at least 13 people and injured 45.

The attack in Babaji, near Lashkar Gah, apparently targeted farmers collecting free seeds under an anti-opium drive.
Local officials said the bomb had been strapped to a bicycle left in the market and detonated remotely.
Meanwhile, the top US military official has said the Pentagon's Afghan efforts are to focus on Kandahar.
No group said it had carried out the attack on Babaji.
The area is close to Marjah, the focus of a major offensive against the Taliban.
No foreign security forces were caught up in Wednesday's blast, the local news channel in  Kabul.

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Call to bar Iraq election winners 'connected to Saddam'

Six of the winning candidates in Iraq's elections should be disqualified because of alleged ties to the former Baath government, a vetting panel says.

If upheld, the move could alter the election result, to which State of Law coalition leader, Nouri Maliki, is already mounting a legal challenge.
Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqiyya list won the election by two seats - too few to form a government.
A list spokesman said the suggested disqualifications would be illegal.
Unnamed officials from the Justice and Accountability Committee told the Associated Press (AP) news agency four of the six candidates belonged to Mr Allawi's Iraqiyya list, but none of the six was named.
The committee was set up to prevent people connected to Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath party from standing for elected office.

Officials said they had submitted 52 names before the election calling for them to be barred from standing, but the Independent High Election Commission did not act on the committee's recommendation and six of those candidates won their elections.
The other two are a Kurdish candidate and a member of the State of Law coalition, AP reported.
Iraqiyya list member Hamid al-Mutlaq said: "The decisions of the Accountability and Justice Committee are not legal, those six winning candidates have the approval of the election commission.
"This is a political decision, not a legal one."
About 500 candidates were barred from standing before the election by the commission.
On Monday Mr Allawi accused Iran of trying to prevent him from becoming prime minister.
Both the UN and US envoys to Iraq have said the 7 March poll was credible.
Much of Mr Allawi's support came from Iraq's Sunni minority, says the a news channel in Baghdad, but most of the parties he would need to back him represent Iraq's Shia majority and have close ties to Iran.

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Twelve killed by twin bombings in Russia's Dagestan

At least 12 people, including a top local police official, have been killed by two suicide bombings in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan.

A car bomb was detonated at about 0830 (0430 GMT) outside the offices of the local interior ministry and the FSB security agency in the town of Kizlyar.
Another bomber then blew himself up 20 minutes later as a crowd gathered.
Russia is on alert after double suicide bombings on the Moscow Metro on Monday morning, which left 39 people dead.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called on the security forces to "scrape from the sewers" those responsible for the Moscow attacks. Investigators say they believe the bombers were linked to militants in the North Caucasus.
At a government meeting following Wednesday's bombings in Dagestan, Mr Putin condemned the "terrorist act" and said he did "not rule out that it is one and the same gang at work".
President Dmitry Medvedev said the two sets of bombings were "links of the same chain".
A militant Islamist group led by a Chechen rebel on Wednesday denied responsibility for the blasts.
"We did not carry out the attack in Moscow, and we don't know who did it," Shemsettin Batukaev, a spokesman for the Caucasus Emirate organisation led by Doku Umarov, told Reuters by telephone in Turkey.
The spokesman added that the group had planned attacks on economic targets inside Russia, but not against civilians.
Last month, Doku Umarov warned that his fighters' "zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia... the war is coming to their cities".

A local news channel in Moscow says that although no-one has yet claimed responsibility for either of this week's attacks, both bear the hallmarks of previous suicide bombings carried out by Islamist militants from the North Caucasus.

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Poor weather halts search of South Korea sunken warship

South Korean search teams have suspended their efforts to reach missing sailors on a sunken warship because of poor weather conditions.

The move comes a day after a diver died searching the wreckage of the Cheonan, which is lying near Baengnyeong Island, close to the border with North Korea.
Forty-six sailors have been missing since an explosion split the ship in two late on Friday.
A minister said the blast could have been caused by a North Korean mine.
A defence ministry spokesman in Seoul told the Yonhap news agency that waves at the rescue site were up to 2m (6ft) high, with winds blowing at 10 knots.
"We are temporarily suspending operations. We cannot expect to get near the ship in this condition," said Won Tae-Jae.
The diver who died, one of dozens trying to gain access to the wreckage, reportedly lost consciousness under water. Yonhap said two of the others were in hospital.
On Tuesday, a navy spokesman said the divers were working in "a very vicious environment" with swift currents and poor visibility.
"Our goal is to get into the ship and find any survivors, but at the moment it is extremely hard to do so," he said.

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ICC to investigate Kenya 2007 election violence

The International Criminal Court has authorised its prosecutor to investigate the violence that followed Kenya's 2007 election.

Some 1,300 people died and tens of thousands were displaced as political differences snowballed into weeks of ethnic score-settling after the poll.
ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked judges last November to approve an investigation into the violence.
He has said Kenyan political leaders organised and financed some violence.
The ICC authorised the investigation in a majority ruling on Wednesday.
"The information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed on Kenyan territory," said the court.
Aid groups and Western governments have urged Kenya to introduce electoral reform, eradicate corruption and punish those who led the killing.
Many Kenyans will welcome this decision as it is widely felt that unless some people are punished for the post election violence of two years ago, the events could all too easily be repeated, says the local channel.
So far nobody has been held to account for the events which took Kenya to the brink of civil war.
But now cabinet ministers and other powerful Kenyans look set to appear in the dock before ICC judges, our correspondent adds.

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UN chief Ban Ki-moon urges support for $4bn Haiti plan

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has opened a fundraising conference on Haiti by calling for a "wholesale national renewal" of the earthquake-hit country.

Mr Ban gave his support to a plan to rebuild Haiti which will require almost $4bn (£2.65bn) in initial aid payments.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told delegates the US would give $1.15bn. Other nations are expected to make up the rest.
The 12 January earthquake killed 200,000 and left one million homeless.
The Haitian government and international officials have spent weeks putting together a plan for the country.
They intend to set up a trust fund to decide how to spend the aid money, and will establish a commission to oversee reconstruction work.
The main tasks are to rebuild destroyed government buildings, hospitals and schools, get farms working again and create jobs.
Mr Ban, the UN secretary general, described the plan as "concrete, specific and ambitious", and said delegates should give it their "full and generous support".

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