One Tamil man who had just left the conflict zone said the rebels tried to shoot anyone planning to escape.

A deadline for the rebels to surrender or face a final assault expired at 0630 GMT with no word from the Tigers.

Each side accuses the other of killing civilians in the long running civil conflict. Foreign reporters are not allowed into the combat zone, making it impossible to independently verify the claims.

he Tigers are restricted to a 20 sq km (12.4 sq miles) coastal patch. Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, said it was not known how many civilians remained there but that the UN had been working off a figure of some 150,000 to 200,000 people in recent months.

Our correspondent says life for the Tamil civilians in the zone is a nightmare. The UN says the Tigers are preventing people from escaping, despite rebel denials. The government is not giving the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to the landward side of the zone.

Mr Ahmadinejad spoke on Monday at the start of the five-day UN conference in Geneva. Jewish migrants, he said, had been sent from Europe and the US after World War II "in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine".

He continued: "And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."

His comments prompted a walk-out by delegates from at least 30 countries, and a raft of condemnation from Western officials. Diplomats who remained, however, applauded as Mr Ahmadinejad continued his address.

Mr Obama said he had had no choice but to release the Bush administration's legal justification for interrogation techniques, which he considers to be torture - and has banned. "Don't be discouraged that we have to acknowledge that potentially we've made some mistakes.

The UBP advocates an outright two-state settlement on Cyprus, at odds with the federal model now being discussed by Talat and Greek Cypriot leader, President Demetris Christofias.

The Greek Cypriots represent Cyprus in the European Union and say they will block Turkey's admission to the EU as long as the island remains divided. Turkey is currently in entry negotiations, but there is strong resistance to Ankara's entry among several member-states.

alat will retain his leadership of the territory, but his room for maneuver is likely to be limited by a parliament now dominated by the UBP. The basis of the current talks is reuniting the island as a bizonal federation. The UBP says it wants a rethink of the process.

"We will continue to support negotiations," said UBP leader Dervis Eroglu. "No one should say we are against them. We will put forward our views and discuss them within the framework of Turkey's foreign policy on Cyprus." In an earlier interview with Turkey's Zaman newspaper, Eroglu was quoted as saying: "Everything will be easier if it is universally accepted that we (Turkish Cypriots) are a nation and that we have a state."

Greek Cypriots refuse to discuss Turkish Cypriot sovereignty, and say a deal should see the evolution of the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus into a federation, rather than a loose association of two states. Greek Cypriots issued a chilly response to the election result. "We will have bigger problems, that is my prediction," Christofias said, referring to the election.

Talat, whose own tenure as president expires in April 2010, said the winner of Sunday's poll should not disrupt peace negotiations. "A government in (Northern Cyprus) that seeks to scupper the talks will also be harming Turkey's EU accession process," he told Havadis, a Turkish Cypriot daily.

Analysts said Turkey, which supported a U.N. peace blueprint for Cyprus rejected by Greek Cypriots in 2004, would not want a disruption of settlement talks. "Turkey is going to continue on its EU path and wants (Northern Cyprus) to do the same," said Ahmet Sozen, a lecturer in international relations at the Eastern Mediterranean University. "Turkey has sent a message to all political players in northern Cyprus that a no-solution policy is not a policy any more."

The United Nations envoy for Cyprus, Alexander Downer, said last week the negotiations had been making "steady progress."

Christofias is secretary-general of AKEL, a Marxist-Leninist party, and is the EU's first communist head of state. He has good personal relations with the leader of the unrecognised "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" Mehmet Ali Talat, who is also a left-wing leader. 

The CTP, which bore the brunt of public discontent over a faltering economy and continued international isolation of the breakaway territory, took 29.25% of the vote. 

As Christofias recently told EurActiv in an interview, his message to the international community is to advise Turkey to be constructive and to refrain from meddling in the talks. 

The UBP advocates an outright two-state settlement on Cyprus, at odds with the federal model now being discussed by Talat and Greek Cypriot leader, President Demetris Christofias. 

The Greek Cypriots represent Cyprus in the European Union and say they will block Turkey's admission to the EU as long as the island remains divided. Turkey is currently in entry negotiations, but there is strong resistance to Ankara's entry among several member-states.

Talat will retain his leadership of the territory, but his room for manoeuvre is likely to be limited by a parliament now dominated by the UBP.  The basis of the current talks is reuniting the island as a bizonal federation. The UBP says it wants a rethink of the process. 

"We will continue to support negotiations," said UBP leader Dervis Eroglu. "No-one should say we are against them. We will put forward our views and discuss them within the framework of Turkey's foreign policy on Cyprus." 

In an earlier interview with Turkey's Zaman newspaper, Eroglu was quoted as saying: "Everything will be easier if it is universally accepted that we [Turkish Cypriots] are a nation and that we have a state." 

Greek Cypriots refuse to discuss Turkish Cypriot sovereignty, and say a deal should see the evolution of the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus into a federation, rather than a loose association of two states.  Greek Cypriots issued a chilly response to the election result. "We will have bigger problems, that is my prediction," Christofias said, referring to the election. 

Analysts said Turkey, which supported a UN peace blueprint for Cyprus rejected by Greek Cypriots in 2004, would not want a disruption of settlement talks.  "Turkey is going to continue on its EU path and wants [Northern Cyprus] to do the same," said Ahmet Sozen, a lecturer in international relations at the Eastern Mediterranean University. "Turkey has sent a message to all political players in northern Cyprus that a no-solution policy is not a policy any more." 

The United Nations envoy for Cyprus, Alexander Downer, said last week the negotiations had been making "steady progress". 

Dutch MEP Joost Lagendijk  (Greens/European Free Alliance), who chairs the European Parliament's delegation to the EU-Turkey joint parliamentary committee, said EU member states have the ability to do "behind-the-scenes" work to make sure that there is a solution on the divided island of Cyprus as soon as possible, but that some of them are not willing to do this.  "Some countries like to hide behind the Cyprus problem - for example, the French government and the Austrians. The majority of the EU states who are in favour of Turkish accession should make it clear within the EU, to the French, to the Austrians and, of course, to the Cypriots, that it is in the EU's interest to have this issue solved," he said in an interview published by the Turkish daily Zaman. 

The leader of the nationalist UBP party, Dervis Eroglu, has said he will be pressing for international recognition for the breakaway state.

The UBP wants the island to remain divided and has its sights on a two-state model. Mr Eroglu has said that he would be appointing his own representative to accompany Mr Talat to future negotiations - a complication which is likely to make the search for a solution to the Cyprus problem considerably more difficult, our correspondent says.

The last attempt at a negotiated solution to the Cypriot problem - in 2004 - collapsed when Turkish Cypriots voted in favour of a UN settlement plan which was rejected by Greek Cypriot voters. As a result, Cyprus - or the southern part ruled by Greek Cypriots - joined the European Union that year, while the north remained effectively excluded.

Ms Saberi, who holds dual US and Iranian citizenship, has spent six years in Iran studying and writing a book. She has been in jail in Tehran since January.

Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, said on CNN that it was “irresponsible for the president” to be seen laughing and joking with “one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world,” referring to Mr. Chávez.And Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, pointed to Cuba’s estimated 200 political prisoners. “Release the prisoners and we’ll talk to you,” he said of the Cuban government on Fox News Sunday, adding, “Put up or shut up.”

Mr. Obama defended his overtures at a news conference on Sunday, saying the handshakes and the polite conversation he shared with Mr. Chávez here were hardly “endangering the strategic interests of the United States.”Wrapping up a four-day swing through Latin America, he said he believed he had paved the way for “frank dialogue” with countries like Venezuela and Cuba, whose relations with the United States have been badly strained.But he also sought to calibrate his message, saying Sunday that he had “great differences” with Mr. Chávez and insisting that freedom for the Cuban people would remain the guiding principle of his foreign policy.

Despite the warm feelings, some old tensions remained. President Evo Morales of Bolivia confronted Mr. Obama during a private session on Saturday with a charge that the United States had plotted to assassinate him. Mr. Obama responded on Sunday, saying, “I am absolutely opposed and condemn any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments.”

And President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, an old Washington nemesis, sought to embarrass Mr. Obama in a nearly one-hour speech filled with anti-American vitriol in which he likened the American embargo of Cuba to the Berlin Wall.

Hoping to push the process forward, leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean have volunteered to aid in a reconciliation between the United States and Cuba. “Brazil would be able to help,” Mr. da Silva said Sunday. In an interview published Sunday in the Spanish newspaper ABC, he said the United States should not wait for Cuba to take the next step in efforts to end their half-century of feuding.

Mr. Chávez took the initiative Saturday, saying he was naming Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s representative to the Organization of American States, to be his new ambassador to Washington.

Mr. Chávez had ejected the American ambassador to Venezuela in September, saying he had discovered an American-backed plot to remove him from power. Washington responded in kind.

A second government adviser, Hu Angang, has said China should start cutting overall emissions from 2020.

While that is a minority view and final decisions are some way off, the proposals are striking because they are at odds with China's official negotiating stance.

Beijing has hitherto rejected carbon emission caps or cuts, arguing that its priority is to improve its people's living standards – and that the west caused the global warming problem and should fix it. But developed nations argue that they cannot commit to deep cuts and to substantial funding for developing nations to fight climate change unless those countries embrace emissions targets.

Environmental groups and foreign diplomats said a carbon intensity target would be a significant step forward. Any move by China, the world's fastest expanding major economy, biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and most influential developing nation, would have an enormous impact on the outcome of the Copenhagen summit in December."It would be a significant step for China to set a target that directly links carbon emissions to economic growth for the first time," said Yang Ailun of Greenpeace."This is a green shoot of pragmatism that should be nurtured," said one European diplomat.

Hu, an influential economist and advocate of "green revolution", is pressing the government to take a leadership role in Copenhagen by making a public commitment to reduce emissions, and last week submitted the proposal to set a new carbon dioxide goal.He is one of 37 members of an elite body that advised the premier, Wen Jiabao, to include ambitious targets of a 20% improvement in energy efficiency and 10% reduction of pollution in the 2006-2010 plan. With government figures suggesting the country is on course to approach or exceed those goals, Hu suggests they be extended for the next plan with the addition of the carbon dioxide target.

If his proposal is accepted, Hu believes China will be able to make an international pledge this year to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from 2020.

the debate on China's role in greenhouse gas reductions is widening. Last month, the Chinese Academy of Science reported that the country's carbon dioxide emissions relative to GDP should be reduced by 50% by 2020, and that total CO2 emissions should peak between 2030 and 2040 if the country introduced more stringent energy-saving policies and received more financial support and technology from overseas.

Citing new figures from the state bureau of energy, Hu said China overtook the US last year as the world's biggest energy producer with 2.6bn tonnes of standard coal equivalent, seven years ahead of expectations. "If we can't succeed in reducing energy consumption, then no one can. I tell the government that a 1% failure in China is a 100% failure for the world," said Hu. "We must satisfy our national interest and match it with the interest of humanity."

BERR officials passed a strategy document belonging to the "environmental protest community" to E.ON, saying: "If you haven't seen this then you will be interested in its contents."• Government officials forwarded a Metropolitan police intelligence document to E.ON, detailing the movements and whereabouts of climate protesters in the run-up to demonstration.• E.ON passed its planning strategy for the protest to the department's civil servants, adding: "Contact numbers will follow."• BERR and E.ON tried to share information about their media strategies before the protest, and civil servants asked the energy company for press contacts for EDF, BP and Kent police.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said the sharing of police intelligence between BERR and E.ON was a serious abuse of power. "The government is in danger of turning police constables into little more than bouncers and private security guards for big business. Police should be used to protect potential victims but also to facilitate people's right to protest," she said.

One email from E.ON to BERR on 24 July gave details of the company's security strategy. In another, sent on 28 July, BERR forwards intelligence from the PNICC, detailing activists' movements, listing times, dates and numbers involved.

The rising numbers of people who are overweight and obese in the UK means the nation uses 19% more food energy than 40 years ago, a study suggests. That could equate to an extra 60 mega tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, the team calculated.

"Staying slim is good for health and for the environment. "We need to be doing a lot more to reverse the global trend towards fatness, and recognise it as a key factor in the battle to reduce emissions and slow climate change."

It is not just a UK issue - in nearly every country in the world, the average BMI is rising.

The UN's first conference on racism in the South African city of Durban eight years ago was marred by anti-Semitic comments from some non-governmental organisations. There was also an unsuccessful attempt by some states to equate Zionism with racism.

His presence at a conference against racism has caused horror in Israel, and nervousness within the United Nations, says the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva.

The draft final declaration, which has been causing much heated debate, has been watered down to remove all references to Israel and the Middle East. However, at the request of Middle East nations, it still contains a clause about the incitement of religious hatred, which many Western countries see as a curtailment of free speech.

US President Barack Obama said anti-Israeli language in the draft final communique that was "oftentimes completely hypocritical and counterproductive" had been the red line for his administration.

EU states are split on whether to follow the US boycott. Germany has become the latest country to announce it would not be attending, joining others including Canada, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

Sharia in Pakistan, as in Afghanistan, exists in tandem with a modern legal code but does not supersede it. Sharia courts rule on certain religious and moral issues, while other cases are tried by regular courts. Mohammed, Aziz and other radicals espouse a more severe version like the one Taliban rulers imposed on Afghanistan in the 1990s, which segregates women and imposes harsh punishments.

Supporters of the Swat agreement pointed out that residents have been demanding sharia for years to replace the slow, corrupt justice system. But Swati leaders said that the local version of Islamic law was traditionally moderate and that in elections last year Swatis voted overwhelmingly for two secular parties.

This week, after the peace accord was endorsed, officials and pro-government news media described the atmosphere in Swat as relieved and heading back to normalcy. But several people who visited the Swati capital of Mingora this week said they saw worried faces, no women in the markets, and clusters of black-turbaned men watching everyone closely.

The government agreed to Mohammed's demands in an effort to halt violent intimidation by Taliban forces that the army was unable to quell despite months of operations in the former tourist haven. In recent interviews, Swati leaders and refugees described armed men in black turbans whipping suspected thieves on the spot, cutting off the ears and noses of village elders who opposed them, and selling videos of police beheadings. "We really had no other choice. We had no power to crush the militants, and people were desperate for peace," said Jafar Shah, a Swati legislator. His Awami National Party, though historically secular, sponsored the sharia deal. "Now people are calling us Taliban without beards," he said ruefully, "but it was the only option available."

"The government made a big mistake to give these guys legal cover for their agenda. Now they are going to be battle-ready to struggle for the soul of Pakistan," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of security studies at Quaid-i-Azam university here. He predicted a further surge in the suicide bombings that have recently become an almost daily occurrence across the country.

Mohammed's dramatic speech echoed a rousing sermon in Islamabad on Friday by another radical cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, who appeared at the Red Mosque in the capital after nearly two years in detention and urged several thousand chanting followers to launch a crusade for sharia nationwide.

Provincial and federal officials also hoped their show of good faith would halt further insurgent inroads and buy time for foreign aid programs to shore up the impoverished northwest against the Islamists' message of swift justice and social equality. Instead, the evidence suggests that the extremist forces have drawn the opposite lesson from their victory in Swat and are gearing up to carry their armed crusade for a punitive, misogynistic form of Islam into new areas. There have been numerous reports of Taliban fighters entering districts south and west of Swat, where they have brandished weapons, bombed and occupied buildings, arrested aid workers, and killed female activists.

"The Korean People's Army will consider sanctions to be applied against the DPRK under various names over its satellite launch or any pressure to be put upon it through 'total participation' in the PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative) as a declaration of undisguised confrontation and a declaration of a war against the DPRK," the announcement on state TV said.

"Now that the group officially declared confrontation and war against the DPRK, its revolutionary armed forces will opt for increasing the nation's defense capability including nuclear deterrent in every way, without being bound to the agreement adopted at the six-party talks," it continued, apparently referring to the Security Council.

Referring to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, the statement added, "The Lee group of traitors should never forget that Seoul is just 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from the Military Demarcation Line."

A Friday report North Korea's official KCNA news agency, seemed to blame the "war hysteria" on the United States and South Korea after the two countries carried out a combined air force operation in South Korea.

The "'South Korea-U.S. military alliance' oft-repeated by them is, in essence, nothing but a 'war alliance' and 'alliance for aggression' aimed at invading the DPRK," the report said. "When a nuclear war will break out due to the war chariot of the 'South Korea-U.S. military alliance' is a matter of time," it said. "The U.S. and South Korean warmongers would be well advised to stop acting rashly, properly understanding who their rival is." E-mail to a friend Share this on: Mixx Digg Facebook del.icio.us reddit StumbleUpon MySpace | Mixx it | Share

U.S. telecommunications companies will now be allowed to set up fiber-optic cable and satellite links with Cuba, start roaming service agreements and permit U.S. residents to pay for telecoms, satellite radio and television services provided to people in Cuba, the White House said.

Obama also directed his government to look at starting regularly scheduled commercial flights to Cuba. Air travel between the United States and Cuba is now limited to charter flights.

Mrs Clinton made her comments about Cuba in the Dominican Republic, ahead of the Summit of the Americas that begins in Trinidad and Tobago later on Friday. "We are continuing to look for productive ways forward because we view the present policy as having failed," she said at a press conference.

Cuba is excluded from the summit, which includes 34 members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), though Latin American leaders have been calling for the communist country to be readmitted. OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said on Friday he would ask the organisation's members to readmit Cuba, 47 years after it was suspended.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would veto the final declaration from the OAS summit because of Cuba's exclusion.