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The Justice Ministry said she is being tried in a closed hearing of Iran's revolutionary court, which handles national security cases.

Russia’s foreign ministry, in a statement on Wednesday, said the riots were a plot aimed at undermining Moldova’s sovereignty and it pointed a finger at forces which favour a reunion with Romania. “The Russian foreign ministry hopes that common sense will prevail, public and constitutional order will be restored in the next few days and the choice of the Moldovan citizens will be confirmed by all politically responsible forces,” it said.

Official election results from Sunday’s vote put the Communists in front with close to 50 percent. The vote is important because Moldova has a single-chamber parliament which is responsible for choosing the country’s president.

Protesters headed to the home of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's top adviser, Prem Tinsulanonda, whom they accuse of masterminding the coup. They are also demanding Prem's resignation and have accused the military, judiciary and Prem's inner circle of interfering in politics.

Prem has denied the accusations that he orchestrated the coup, but the rare public criticism of a king's privy counsellor broke a taboo in Thailand, where members of the monarchy and their aides are highly revered. Prem had been indirectly accused of orchestrating the coup before

Most of Thaksin's supporters are from the country's poor rural majority, who benefited from his populist policies. They are known as "the red shirts," for their favoured attire.

The data stored does not include the content of e-mails or a recording of a net phone call, but is used to determine connections between individuals. Authorities can get access to the stored records with a warrant.

Sweden has decided to ignore the directive completely while there is a challenge going through the German courts at present.

Isabella Sankey, Policy Director at Liberty, said the directive formalised what had already been taking place under voluntary arrangement for years. "The problem is that this regime allows not just police to access this information but hundreds of other public bodies."

“It’s a setback,” Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks satellites and rocket launchings, said of the North Korean launching. He added that the North Koreans must now find and fix the problem. “The missile doesn’t represent any kind of near-term threat.”

The United States Northern Command, based in Colorado Springs, issued a statement on Sunday that portrayed the launching as a major failure. It based its information on a maze of federal radars, spy ships and satellites that monitor global missile firings.

The command emphasized that “no object entered orbit,” apparently a reference to both the rocket’s third stage as well as the supposed satellite.

North Korea’s public portrayal of the event as a complete success was similar in its celebratory tone to the happy note it struck in 1998 after having failed to loft a satellite into orbit.

A general rule of engineering is that failures reveal more than successes. If so, North Korea — which has now test-fired three long-range rockets, each time unsuccessfully — is learning a lot about limitations.

“It’s not unusual to have a series of failures at the beginning of a missile program,” Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control specialist at the New America Foundation, a research group in Washington, said in an interview. “But they don’t test enough to develop confidence that they’re getting over the problems.”Dr. Lewis added that an influential 1998 report by Donald H. Rumsfeld, before he became secretary of defense in the Bush administration, argued that the North Korean rockets might be good enough to pose a threat to the United States, even without flight testing. “But given that both versions of the Taepodong-2 have failed now,” he said, “we have very little confidence in the reliability of the system.”

In August 1998, North Korea’s first attempt at launching a long-range rocket, the Taepodong-1, managed to scare Japan but failed to deliver a satellite to orbit. The troubles continued in July 2006 when its second test of a long-range missile, the Taepodong-2, ended in an explosion just seconds after liftoff.

"The right always says that we don't have a partner on the Palestinian side, as an excuse for the lack of progress. Now we are not a partner," Livni said.

She added that Kadima would have joined a unity government had Lieberman been prevented from joining.

In an interview Wednesday with Israel's Channel 2 TV, Lieberman went beyond his criticism of peace talks with the Palestinians and said he opposed any withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for a peace deal with Syria.

"I am very much in favor of peace with Syria, but only on one basis - peace in return for peace," he said, adding there would be "no withdrawals from the Golan during my time and hopefully not at any time."

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government held indirect peace talks last year with Syria, which demands that Israel return the Golan as a condition for any deal. Erdan said Lieberman's statement conformed with the government's platform. "We said during the election campaign that we oppose concessions on the Golan Heights," he said. "You have to get used to it - this is the position of most of the public."

The contrast is striking. Only four years ago, George W. Bush, in his second Inaugural Address, described what he called America's "considerable" influence, saying, "We will use it confidently in freedom's cause." Bush's vision of American power was combative and aggressive. He said the U.S. would "seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture." He continued, "We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom."

Obama, by contrast, is looking for collaboration. He is looking to build a collective vision, not to impose an American one.

Clinton had pressed for Iranian participation in The Hague conference, stressing the importance of finding a regional solution to the insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and western officials were encouraged that Akhundzadeh, a deputy foreign minister and former charge d'affaires in London, was sent by Tehran.

Akhundzadeh told ministers from more than 70 countries at the meeting: "Welcoming the proposals for joint co-operation offered by the countries contributing to Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran is fully prepared to participate in the projects aimed at combating drug trafficking and plans in line with developing and reconstructing Afghanistan."

He repeated Tehran's criticism of the Nato role in Afghanistan, but used relatively moderate language, saying: "The presence of foreign forces has not improved things and it seems that an increase in the number of foreign forces will prove ineffective, too."

Akhundzadeh added: "The military expenses need to be redirected to the training of the Afghan police and army and Afghanisation should lead the government building process" - an apparent nod towards the Obama administration's decision to send 4,000 more American military trainers.

Western officials expressed hopes that the west and Iran could return to the close co-operation over Afghanistan that took place in the months after the 9/11 attacks. Iranian officials even helped the US target the Taliban, but the relationship cooled after Bush's "axis of evil" speech.

"There is a meeting of minds on drugs, development issues and the [August Afghan] elections, though not on foreign troops, on which they made clear their objections."

Malloch Brown acknowledged that Iran had done some "bad things" in both Afghanistan and Iraq, supplying weaponry to insurgents that had been used against British soldiers.But he argued: "This is Iran supporting its proxies because of a lack of diplomatic partnership around Iraq and Afghanistan. If this is a rapprochement, whether it is overall rapprochement or just aimed at stabilising Afghanistan, it offers the prospect of this behaviour getting moderated and hopefully stopping."

Asked what tools were available to Georgia, Shota Utiashvili, who heads the analysis section of Georgia’s Interior Ministry, answered with a single word: “None.”

The Ossetian government does not allow European monitors on its territory, and it denied access to a Times reporter seeking to cross the boundary; for these reasons, the Georgian numbers and assertions could not be independently confirmed.

The allies will offer more funds but no more than several thousand new personnel members, according to alliance military planners. Many of those will not be soldiers, but police trainers to meet a central pillar of the president’s new Afghan strategy, which focuses on an expansion of Afghan security forces. But even for the small numbers of European combat reinforcements, check the fine print: Nearly all will be sent to provide security for Afghanistan’s elections this summer, and will not be permanently deployed.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and his British counterpart, John Hutton, have publicly warned that the performance of some European troops demonstrates that NATO risks slipping toward a two-tiered alliance. In that event, it would be divided between those that can and will fight, like Britain, Canada, France and Poland, and those that cannot or will not because of public opinion at home.

In many cases, European capitals have placed severe restrictions on their forces assigned to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, or I.S.A.F. That has been such a hindrance to the war effort, in the view of some American commanders, that they ruefully say the alliance mission’s initials now stand for “I Saw America Fight.”

The Mullen-Ashkenazi axis, like similar axes between heads of the two countries' intelligence communities, allows the Americans to sense the genuine atmosphere beneath the public propaganda disseminated in Israel and to understand the extent to which Israel is really concerned about the Iranian nuclear threat. It also affords them the opportunity to reassure, to delay and, at the very least, to walk the hidden line between the desire not to officially know in advance, in order to safeguard the ability to shrug off responsibility, and the need not to be surprised.

Make no mistake about the Obama administration, when it comes to Iran: Its policy differs from that of the Bush administration only in style, not in content. Its officials express themselves in positive terms, cloaked in an expression of conciliation, as opposed to the angry face worn by president George W. Bush - but the conclusions are similar, as are the results. Gary Samore, who Jones put in charge of coordinating the issue of weapons of mass destruction, said often, before his appointment, including during a speech at the Herzliya Conference in 2007, organized by Uzi Arad (today Benjamin Netanyahu's national security advisor), that the Iranians will continue their efforts to obtain nuclear weapons and that economic and diplomatic pressure will not help.

Ashton Carter, recently nominated by the president to be under secretary of defense for acquistion, technology and logistics, offered a similar analysis for the Bush administration, when he outlined three alternatives to confronting Iran. Plan B3, the military option, also entailed a possible bombing of Iranian oil installations, which are not protected and concealed like components of the nuclear infrastructure. The prevailing balance of power within the Obama administration tends to favor attacking Iran's nuclear installations, or to tolerate an Israeli attack. A prominent opponent of using military force against Iran, Charles Freeman, who had been slated to head the U.S. National Intelligence Council, was dropped under pressure of Israel's American supporters.

Obama will wait - not only for Iranian elections, scheduled for June (and those in Lebanon, that same month), but also for September's elections in Germany, and for Britons to vote at more or less the same time (elections have yet to be scheduled), in order to know who will stand by his side in the trenches. In that way 2009 will pass without a decision, but not all of 2010, because come that November, Congressional elections will be held, immediately after which the Democrats will begin organizing Obama's reelection campaign. The summer of 2010 will be critical, because by then the evacuation of most of the American forces from Iraq will be completed and fewer exposed targets will remain for Iranian revenge attacks.

The development of the Iron Dome system for intercepting Katyusha rockets, whose first battery will protect the environs north of the Gaza Strip (Ashkelon, Sderot), is expected to be completed by the summer of 2010. That will make it difficult for Hamas to open another front to harass the IDF on Iran's behalf. In the coming months, the tests of the Arrow missile defense system will continue, in a scenario that simulates an attack by a long-distance Iranian missile. The tests will be carried out in cooperation with American systems, including the large radar facility at the Nevatim air base. Preparations for defence against a radioactive attack will also improve, at an event to be staged at either an Israeli or an American port, as will preparations for a plague of smallpox, in a joint exercise involving Israel and one of NATO's important European member states.

In the Pentagon's most recent report about the strengthening of China, Israel receives a pat on the back, of the kind given to a well-behaved child: It has been cured of the habit of providing air-to-ground Harpy missiles to China, which extend the Chinese air force's operational range, and has also enforced stricter export supervision. The Americans are displaying a false naivete: Nothing has changed except for two offices having been moved around administratively. The decision to launch a military operation against Iran, particularly using American-made planes (such as the F-16, whose supply was suspended after Israel's 1981 attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor), will have to be preceded by feelers to discern where Obama stands exactly on the continuum between approval and opposition. Apparently Israel wants Obama to emerge sufficiently strengthened from this week's NATO summit, but still too weak to say no to Israel.

Vague low-carbon language and climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December were relegated to two paragraphs at the communique's end.

Some critics also pointed out that the summit failed to produce a co-ordinated plan to purge the global banking system of billions of dollars of toxic assets, and suggested that regulation of the financial industry should have gone further.

Brown said that the existing agreed fiscal stimulus will amount to $5tn by 2010, and the measures will raise world output by 4% by the end of next year.

The prime minister also won agreement from other G20 world leaders that the International Monetary Fund will monitor the existing stimulus,

Overall, the resources of the IMF will be trebled from $250bn to $700bn, following the lifting by the US of years of opposition. In a sign of the shift in world power, China agreed to provide $40bn of the new loans given to the IMF, with more to come from Saudi Arabia.

At the centre of the deal was a six-point plan:• Reform of the global banking system, with controls on hedge funds, better accounting standards, tighter rules for credit rating agencies, and immediate naming-and-shaming of tax havens that fail to share information.• A global common approach to dealing with toxic assets that impair the ability of banks to lend.• A $1.1tn package to supplement the $5tn stimulus to the global economy by individual countries. The $1.1tn will allow the IMF, the World Bank and others to increase lending to vulnerable countries. There will be a tenfold increase to $250bn in the IMF's facility allowing members to borrow from other countries' foreign currency reserves.• More power for leading developing countries within the IMF and World Bank, to end the stranglehold of the US and Europe on their top jobs.• $200bn of trade finance over two years to help reverse the steepest decline in world trade since 1945, with cash from a range of public and private sources.• A pledge that the fiscal stimulus, including the sale of gold by the IMF due to raise $6bn, will give help to the poorest nations and create green jobs.

Nicolas Sarkozy said the summit meant that the era of secrecy by banks was over; "great progress" had been made, he said, and the page had been turned on the economic model which had dominated since Bretton Woods in 1944 created the world's institutional framework."Since Bretton Woods, the world has been living on a financial model, the Anglo-Saxon model. It's not my place to criticise it, it has its advantages [but] clearly today a page has been turned," he said.

The summit's biggest loser may have been the fight against climate change. Diplomatic sources said China led the opposition to green language in the final communique. David Norman, the WWF campaigns director, claimed that the summit had been "a huge missed opportunity".

But when the emir of Qatar switched off his microphone, Col Gaddafi insisted that he could not be denied the right to address the summit as - he called himself - the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims.

Arab leaders have concluded their annual summit by showing their support for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir who is wanted for war crimes. The Arab League said it rejected the International Criminal Court's decision to issue a warrant for his arrest. President Bashir had earlier spoken at the summit in Qatar, and won strong support from his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.

earlier reports that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had stormed out of the Arab League summit were incorrect. But, our correspondent says, Mr Gaddafi used the floor to settle old scores, criticising Saudi King Abdullah and appearing to reignite a public spat he had at the 2003 Arab summit. At Monday's opening session he called the king a British product and an American ally. But he added that he now considered their "problem" over and was ready to reconcile, drawing applause from the other delegates. The two leaders appeared to bury the hatchet with a 30 minute face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the summit, reports said.

At the end of the summit a joint statement by the Arab League said: "We stress our solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the ICC (International Criminal Court) decision." Earlier in the day, Syrian President Assad said those who had "committed massacres and atrocities in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon" should be arrested first.

In his opening remarks, Syria's President Assad also spoke about Israel - saying the Arab world had no "real partner in the peace process".