North Korea has started to reprocess spent fuel rods at its nuclear plant, says the country's state media. The reprocessing is a possible move towards producing weapons grade plutonium and comes after Pyongyang's launch of a long-range rocket in April.

"The reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the pilot atomic power plant began as declared in the Foreign Ministry statement dated 14 April," North Korea's Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying.

The official said the reprocessing would "contribute to bolstering the nuclear deterrence for self-defence in every way to cope with the increasing military threats from the hostile forces".

Mrs Clinton said the recent upsurge in violence was a tragic signal that Iraq was in fact on the right path.

On Friday, two female suicide bombers attacked Baghdad's main Shia shrine, killing at least 60 people and injuring 125 others, Iraqi officials said. On Thursday, 84 people were killed in two separate suicide attacks in Baghdad and Baquba.

Many victims were Iranian pilgrims, and the violence was condemned in Tehran. On Saturday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused US troops of involvement in the bombings that had killed Iranian nationals, Reuters news agency reported.

JPost.com » Israel » Article Apr 24, 2009 0:14&nbsp;|&nbsp;Updated Apr 24, 2009 13:54 'World leaders must drop their slogans' By DAVID HOROVITZ AND AMIR MIZROCH PrintSubscribe articleTitle = ' \'World leaders must drop their slogans\' '; showOdiogoReadNowButton ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566',articleTitle,'0', 290, 55); E-mailToolbar + Recommend: What's this? showInitialOdiogoReadNowFrame ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566', '0', 290, 0); Talkbacks for this article: 117 &nbsp; | &nbsp;Avg. rating 4.61 out of 5</s

The international community has to "stop speaking in slogans" if it really wants to help the new Israeli government work toward a solution to the Palestinian conflict and help bring stability to the Middle East, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, in his first interview with an Israeli newspaper since taking the job.

"Over the last two weeks I've had many conversations with my colleagues around the world," he said. "Just today, I saw the political adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Chinese foreign minister and the Czech prime minister. And everybody, you know, speaks with you like you're in a campaign: Occupation, settlements, settlers..." Slogans like these, and others Lieberman cited, such as "land for peace" and "two-state solution," were both overly simplistic and ignored the root causes of the ongoing conflict, he said.

Iran is the main obstacle to peace in the Mideast, Israel's new foreign minister said in an interview published Friday.

Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post that it will be "impossible to resolve any problem in our region" without dealing with Iran's nuclear program and its support for militant groups opposed to Israel, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

His comments come as differences have appeared between the hard-line government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration over the peace process. President Barack Obama has said the U.S. seeks a "two-state" solution, with the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel, while Netanyahu has not publicly embraced the principle. Israelis have also expressed concern over Obama's calls for outreach to Iran, which Israel considers its top nemesis.

Facebook users have voted to back changes which give them control over data and content they post on the site. Early results suggest 75% of those who voted support the proposals.

The vote was triggered by changes Facebook made to its terms and conditions in February. The move drew fire because it appeared to hand the social network site ownership of images, videos and data that users posted on profile pages. Low turnout In response to the criticism, Facebook withdrew the changed terms, wrote a new set and invited its 200 million members to make their views known.

In total about 600,000 people took part in the week-long vote. Initially, Facebook said it would only adopt those new terms if 30% of its members voted in support of them.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has dismissed the head of the country's powerful GRU military intelligence service, the Kremlin has said. Mr Medvedev signed a decree on Friday replacing Gen Valentin Korabelnikov with Gen Alexander Shlyakhturov. Officials gave no reason for the move. Gen Korabelnikov had led the Main Directorate of Intelligence since 1997.

The Main Directorate of Intelligence (GRU) of the General Staff is Russia's largest intelligence agency. It is believed to have six times as many agents in foreign countries as the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), one of the successors to the Soviet KGB.

A Lebanese prosecutor has charged a former general and three other people with spying for Israel. Former Brig Gen Adeeb Al-Alam is accused of sending classified information to the Israeli secret service, Mossad.

The case has been transferred to a military court, and Gen Alam and his co-accused could face the death penalty if they are found guilty.

Lebanese media say Gen Alam is believed to have been spying for Israel since 1984.

we have no time to lose. Let's hope that people will have realized by December that the financial crisis is a prime example of unsustainable economies, and that we should protect the planet from suffering a similar blow to the one currently afflicting the global economy. I'm actually quite optimistic that investments that save resources, save energy and are green, while at the same time making life less costly and our economy more competitive will pick up speed tremendously.

SPIEGEL: There was little evidence of that at the G-20 summit. Gabriel: At least the participants moved a passage on stabilizing the economy in an environmentally responsible way to the front of their closing statement. Half a year ago, those words would have been inconceivable. But there was a lack of concretion, and that was weak. The G-20 will have to correct this deficiency before Copenhagen, or things will be more than difficult.

SPIEGEL: Doesn't an environment minister have to scrutinize the consumption behavior and lifestyle of citizens, even at the risk of not making any friends in the process? Gabriel: Should I come up with something like (former Environment Minister) Jürgen Trittin's can deposit program, which led to a boom in disposable packaging? Now there's a case of maximum unpopularity coupled with maximum damage! I also don't think much of puritanically suggesting to people that they exercise restraint. That doesn't cause the auto industry to modify its engines. And we didn't solve the waste problems of the 1980s with non-consumption, but by charging a price for waste and developing ways to avoid waste or recycle. We consume more today than we did then, and yet we produce drastically less waste. The limits of growth as a political message have failed worldwide.

to see that Africans are the hardest hit by climate change, even though they generate almost no greenhouse gas, is a glaring injustice, which also triggers anger and outrage over those who seek to ignore it.

SPIEGEL: But one cannot claim that the German government is making any particular effort to stop climate change. The measures that have been introduced to date are insufficient to achieve the goal we have set for ourselves, a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Are you disappointed by Angela Merkel, the former climate chancellor?

Gabriel: Oh please. We are among a handful of countries in Europe that have exceeded their Kyoto climate protection goals for 2012 in 2008. And we never claimed that have already implemented all the measures that will be needed to reach our goal for the year 2020. We are still about five percentage points behind. But a great deal has been put in motion, from the expansion of renewable energy to the renovation of buildings. And just as an aside, these efforts have created 280,000 new jobs. Our counterparts in other countries, including South Africa, China and India, rate us in a completely different way and see us as role models. So why the criticism?

As the Taliban tightened their hold over newly won territory, Pakistani politicians and American officials on Thursday sharply questioned the government’s willingness to deal with the insurgents and the Pakistani military’s decision to remain on the sidelines.

Some 400 to 500 insurgents consolidated control of their new prize, a strategic district called Buner, just 70 miles from the capital, Islamabad, setting up checkpoints and negotiating a truce similar to the one that allowed the Taliban to impose Islamic law in the neighboring Swat Valley.

As they did, Taliban contingents were seen Thursday in at least two other districts and areas still closer to the capital, according to Pakistani government officials and residents.

The Obama administration’s effort to return the largest group of Guantánamo Bay detainees to Yemen, their home country, has stalled, creating a major new hurdle for the president’s plan to close the prison camp in Cuba by next January, American and Yemeni officials say.

The Yemeni government has asked Washington to return its detainees and has said that it would need substantial aid to rehabilitate the men. But the Obama administration is increasingly skeptical of Yemen’s ability to provide adequate rehabilitation and security to supervise returned prisoners. In addition, American officials are wary of sending detainees to Yemen because of growing indications of activity by Al Qaeda there.

The developments are significant for the Obama administration because the 97 Yemeni detainees make up more than 40 percent of the remaining 241 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The question of what to do with them “is integral to the process of closing Guantánamo,” said Ken Gude, an associate director at the Center for American Progress who has written about closing the prison camp.

Two US journalists arrested by North Korea near its border with China are to face trial, North Korea's state media has reported.

Euna Lee, a Korean-American, and Laura Ling, a Chinese-American, who work for Current TV, were detained on 17 March. The North said it had decided to charge the women after completing an inquiry into their "crimes" - although the precise charges remain unclear. The North says the two women illegally crossed the border from China.

The BBC's John Sudworth, in Seoul, says there are concerns that the two reporters could be used by North Korea as bargaining chips at a time of heightened tension.

International alarm at the Talibanisation of parts of northern Pakistan near Islamabad was mounting last night after militants ambushed a convoy of soldiers deployed to prevent extremists taking over a district only 60 miles from the capital.

Snipers opened fire on police escorting four platoons of Frontier Corps paramilitary troops into Buner district, a day after militants overran government buildings and looted western aid offices. One policeman was killed and one injured, an army spokesman said.

Locals said the ambush had forced the Frontier Corps to retreat. "Now Buner is ruled by the Taliban," one resident told the Guardian by phone. "They go anywhere they want."

The Taleban say they are withdrawing from a Pakistani district where their consolidation of power this week has caused deep concern in the US. A Taleban spokesman said commander Maulana Fazlullah had issued the order for fighters to pull back from Buner, just 100km (62 miles) from Islamabad.

The Taleban have agreed a peace deal bringing Sharia law to some districts in return for ending their insurgency. The peace deal covers six districts of Malakand division, including the troubled Swat region, in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The Taleban have almost full control of Swat and this week had strengthened operations in Buner.

US and Russian negotiators are meeting in Rome to begin work on a new treaty to curb nuclear weapons. The talks are the first step towards replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start-1), signed in 1991, which runs out at the end of the year.

In particular, Moscow has expressed concern at US plans to build an anti-missile system in central Europe.

"One should bear in mind that the lower we go in terms of the numbers of warheads, the more serious issues linked to missile defence and the strategic potential of other nuclear powers appear," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Russian news agency Interfax.

he government says 100,000 people have fled since Monday's military push. An estimated 60,000 people had already fled in recent months.

A UN document being circulated around diplomatic missions in Sri Lanka estimates that nearly 6,500 civilians have died and 14,000 have been injured.

On Thursday, the representative of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Colombo, Amin Awad, called on the Sri Lankan government to allow pauses in the fighting so the necessary work could be completed.

A hard-line politician and former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai, announced Wednesday that he would enter the presidential race, indicating additional splintering among the country’s conservatives.

Mr. Rezai, who oversaw the Revolutionary Guards from 1981 to 1997, had been seeking to unite conservative politicians behind another candidate to compete against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But he decided instead to become a candidate himself in the presidential election, to be held June 12, Iranian news media reported.

Mr. Rezai, who has accused Mr. Ahmadinejad of mismanaging the economy, will run as an independent candidate, the ISNA news agency reported.

It is election season in Lebanon, and Hussein H., a jobless 24-year-old from south Beirut, is looking forward to selling his vote to the highest bidder.

“Whoever pays the most will get my vote,” he said. “I won’t accept less than $800.”

He may get more. The parliamentary elections here in June are shaping up to be among the most expensive ever held anywhere, with hundreds of millions of dollars streaming into this small country from around the globe.

the first government-to-government talks -- lasting only 22 minutes -- between the two Koreas in more than a year.

On Tuesday, the South Korean and North Korean delegations were to discuss business deals tied to the Kaesung Industrial Complex in North Korea, which is run by both nations. The talks broke off after the North Korean delegation refused to discuss the release of a detained South Korean worker, saying he was not on the agenda, according to South Korean officials.

Taliban fighters spilling out of the Swat Valley have swept across Buner, a district 60 miles from Islamabad, as Hillary Clinton warned the situation in Pakistan now poses a "mortal threat" to the security of the world.

The US secretary of state told Congress yesterday that Pakistan faced an "existential" threat from Islamist militants. "I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," she said. Any further deterioration in the situation "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world", she said.

In Buner, Taliban fighters occupied government buildings, ransacked the offices of aid agencies and ordered aid employees to leave. Fighters brandishing guns and rocket launchers patrolled villages, forcing beleaguered local police to retreat to their stations. Local courts have stopped functioning and judicial officials have gone on indefinite leave.