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Sat Sep 23, 6:54 PM ET OJAI, Calif. - Hot, dry Santa Ana winds increased Saturday as crews battling a three-week-old wildfire in Los Padres National Forest rushed to carve fire breaks before the fiercest gusts arrived. "It is blowing ferociously. We expect a lot more acreage to go," Ventura County fire Capt. Barry Parker said. Winds were gusting to 52 mph in the area about 75 miles north of Los Angeles, officials said. No imminent threat was reported to homes. But 10 homes were evacuated, and hundreds of people in communities about 10 miles from the fire's edge were urged to be ready to evacuate if the winds from the northeast set the flames racing. The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for extreme fire conditions through Sunday in the area. Forecasters said gusts as high as 70 mph were possible during the weekend. Such conditions could drive the blaze in mile-long leaps along ridges and steep canyons, with flames spreading as fast as 11 mph, said Larry Comerford of the U.S. Forest Service. A light, moist wind from the south had calmed the fire for much of the week. Crews used the time to burn chaparral and wrap isolated homes in protective material. Fire trucks waited in some driveways to protect dwellings. Parker said more than 20 aircraft were "painting the hills with fire retardant" but would have to be grounded if the winds became too powerful. The fire along the border of Ventura and Los Angeles counties doubled in size to about 80,000 acres, or 125 square miles, when Santa Ana winds kicked up a week ago. The fire began on Labor Day and has burned 116,971 acres, or nearly 183 square miles. It was nearly 40 percent contained. More than 3,000 firefighters were battling the blaze, which has cost $31.7 million to fight. Elsewhere, crews mopped up two smaller fires in forests to the south. A 2,730-acre fire in San Bernardino National Forest was fully contained Saturday. A fire in Angeles National Forest north of Los Angeles was fully contained Friday after burning 113 acres. In northern California, calmer weather helped firefighters control and extinguish a series of fires that destroyed three homes, 15 barns and dozens of cattle. Officials lifted an evacuation order for more than 100 residents near Zamora, said Mike Chandler, acting fire coorditor Yolo County.

by Emmanuel Angleys Fri Sep 22, 4:05 PM ET MEGEVE, France (AFP) - Mountain water resources are under threat from global warming and increased usage of the precious resource by ski resorts, scientists warned at a conference in the French Alps. "Mountains concentrate an important chunk of precipitation. All the great rivers of the world take their source from them. They are the planet's water castles," said Jean-Francois Donzier, director general of the International Office for Water. The United Nations forecast an increase in global temperatures of 1.4-5.8 degrees Celsius (34.5-42.4 degrees Fahrenheit), and implications for mountain water resources could be massive, the experts warned at the four-day conference in the French ski resort of Megeve. The effects are already evident in the reduction in size of glaciers, with close to half of those in France forecast to disappear by the end of the century, according to Pierre Etchevers from the French weather office. "We add eight to 10 meters (26 to 33 feet) of ladder every year to get to the Mer de Glace (glacier) in Chamonix," said Martial Saddier from the French Association of Mountain Water. And a reduction in the volume of snow has been noted over the past 20 years, as well as a shortening of the period when snow falls, threatening the future of ski resorts below 1,800 metres and prompting the increased usage of snow cannons, machines turning water in snow which is then sprayed onto the pistes. For ski resorts, the recourse to man-made snow has obvious economic advantages, attracting more and more visitors and extending the season -- despite complaints from purists. Resorts now want to "guarantee that everyone who comes to the mountains has the possibility to ski from December to March/April," said Jean-Claude Domenego, head of the French Alpine Club. But both the increase in the number of winter sports tourists and the greater recourse to snow machines have also added to pressure on mountain water resources, depleting resources and leaving less for other human uses such as agricultural irrigation downstream and hydro-electric power stations. As a result around 20 artificial water reservoirs are being constructed in the Alps, said Alain Marnezy, professor at University of Savoie, including one for 400,000 cubic metres (14 million cubic feet) at Grand Bornand. With mountains covering around a third of Europe's surface, there were also calls for greater support from European Union authorities. The scientists also discussed the European directive aiming for a "good ecological state" of Europe's water by 2015, although there were differences over the definition of such a term. "No one is in agreement on the definition of a good ecological state of water," said Jean-Marie Wauthier, international director at the water ministry in the Walloon region of Belgium. There has to be a distinction between the biological state, characterised by a minimum presence of animal and plant life, and a good chemical state, meaning a lack of pollutants in the water, Wauthier said. Further difficulties are created by the fact that many of Europe's rivers flow through more than one country, making cooperation between states imperative. The Danube, for example, flows through 18 countries.

I've read all the Q&A on the site and it seems that I understood how this works. 1st I need to get 5000 Helions (500 posts) 2nd Send domain email to djbob (eg: www.example.com) 3rd Got my domain, need to write 25 posts (250 Helions) monthly 4th that's it? do I have to make 500 posts annually (yearly)? or do I just make 25 posts every month once I get the domain?

AP - The remains of two dinosaurs believed to be millions of years old were discovered in southern Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

By Anis Ahmed Sat Sep 23, 9:56 AM ET DHAKA/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Storms that battered Bangladesh and eastern India have killed more than 170 people and left many missing, navy and coastguard officials said on Saturday. A new cyclone alert was also issued for early Sunday in the Kutch region in Gujarat, and two ports -- one in Mundra and one in Kandla -- have been shut down. "We have alerted the port officials and have asked the labourers on the port, fishermen and hundreds of saltpan workers to move to safer locations," local administrator Dhananjay Dwivedi told Reuters. Strong winds and heavy rain triggered by a storm last week have left around 375,000 people homeless in India and Bangladesh over the past four days. Life across Bangladesh, especially in the capital Dhaka, remained largely paralysed with roads knee-deep high with water, witnesses said. Most of the victims in the eastern coast of India and Bangladesh were fishermen caught in the storm on Tuesday night while fishing in the Bay of Bengal, government officials said. They said more than a dozen navy vessels, other boats and helicopters launched a massive search and rescue operation off the Bangladesh coast on Saturday, as hopes of finding the missing alive faded fast. "The sea is still very rough, hampering rescue efforts," a coastguard official said. "So far nearly 100 bodies have been retrieved from the sea at half a dozen spots," said an official in the badly hit Bangladeshi coastal district of Barguna. Authorities say that while many boats have managed to return to shore, the navy and coastguard are still looking for hundreds of fishermen who remain unaccounted for. Also they were looking for a naval officer missing in the bay after his patrol boat ran aground on an island during Tuesday's storm. Other crews of the grounded boat had been recovered by helicopter. Surviving fishermen said they were caught off guard as weather authorities had failed to warn them of the impending storm. Dhaka's weather office denied this, saying an alert was issued well in advance. In West Bengal, constant rain and flooding have killed around 30 people, and forced 350,000 living mainly in coastal areas from their homes. "People have been killed mostly from houses collapsing, lightning, trees landing on them," said Mriganka Biswas from the state's relief department. "Victims are now living under tarpaulin sheets provided by the government," he said, adding that around 70,000 homes had been destroyed in the state. In Kolkata, police used boats on Friday to rescue hundreds of families stranded in low-lying slums. The storms also killed more than 40 people and left nearly 15,000 homeless in Andhra Pradesh. (Additional reporting by S. Radha Kumar in HYDERABAD; Manas Banerjee in MALDA; and Rupam Jain Nair in AHMEDABAD)

Sat Sep 23, 6:51 AM ET BERLIN (Reuters) - France, Britain and Germany would be willing to begin talks with Iran even if it has not suspended its nuclear enrichment program first, but Washington would not take part, a German magazine reported on Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT So far Iran has refused to suspend its uranium enrichment program, which could refine uranium for atom bombs, saying its nuclear fuel ambitions are limited to fuelling power stations. Western countries suspect Tehran wants to produce weapons. Citing unnamed German diplomatic sources, weekly Der Spiegel said the goal of this new strategy would be to lure Tehran to the negotiating table to discuss a package of incentives offered by six world powers in June in exchange for a suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment program. The six powers that made the offer to Iran -- the United States, France, Russia, China, Britain and Germany -- said the package was negotiable but conditioned any negotiations on a suspension of enrichment, a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel in nuclear power plants or atomic weapons. In a preview of an article to appear on Sunday, the magazine said a decision by the "EU3" to begin preliminary talks with Iran would require a positive outcome of discussions between European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. The United States would not join in any talks with Iran until a full enrichment suspension was in place, the paper said. After several delays, Solana and Larijani are expected to meet somewhere in Europe next week, diplomats have said. Der Spiegel said the meeting would probably take place in Brussels. The six powers have agreed to give Solana until early October to reach a deal with Tehran for starting negotiations. The new plan was discussed at a meeting of senior officials of the six countries and the EU in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Der Spiegel said. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice voiced no direct approval to this strategy but signaled she could tolerate it, the magazine reported. If this plan does not result in a breakthrough in the West's years-long nuclear standoff with Iran, the six countries will have no choice but to begin debating serious sanctions of the kind Washington wants imposed on the Islamic republic, it said.

By Sandor Peto 1 hour, 51 minutes ago BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people poured into Budapest's parliament square on Saturday in the biggest rally so far against Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany over his admission that he lied to the electorate. More demonstrators were still arriving in the late afternoon to join at least 30,000 already in the large square in front of the huge neo-Gothic parliament building, where protests have been held for the past week. The demonstrations have widened the bitter division between the governing left and the rightist opposition, each accusing the other of fomenting violence to win ground ahead of local elections on October 1. Some of the protesters were from far-right groups and there was concern about possible violence as local soccer team Ferencvaros, some of whose supporters are known for hooliganism and hatred of the government, were playing a home game. Thousands of supporters of Fidesz, the main opposition party which canceled its own rally because of fears of violence, were among those gathering in the square, and party leaders reiterated earlier calls for Gyurcsany to quit. Fidesz Deputy President Pal Schmitt, in a brief speech outside parliament, asked the crowd to wear white clothes and white armbands to show they reject violence, and about half the crowd were wearing some white clothing. Fidesz leader Viktor Orban told private InfoRadio that Gyurcsany had broken the law. "We are dealing with a chronic liar, that's clear," he said, referring to Gyurcsany's remarks, on a tape leaked to media, that his party had lied "in the morning and in the evening" to win re-election in April. Violence erupted after his remarks were aired and the protests against his admitted mendacity have swollen over the past week. "There are more and more people coming. There will be a lot of people here tonight," said Aletta Peller, 31, who traveled from the northwestern town of Veszeprem to join the rally. "We want a real democracy... one without lies." The turmoil in Budapest coincides with a political shakeup in Poland and the Czechs' failure to form a new government more than three months after an election, and added to investors' concern about political instability in central Europe. POLICE ON ALERT Police said they were on alert, intent on preventing a repeat of violence earlier in the week when demonstrators pelted officers with cobblestones, torched cars and stormed the state television building. Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky said more protesters were arriving in the capital from the countryside. "The situation is likely to be made worse by the (Ferencvaros) soccer match ... it can be expected that the fans will head toward Kossuth (parliament) square after the match," Demszky said. Gyurcsany, a 45-year-old millionaire, has rejected opposition calls to quit and won his party's backing for a package of budget cuts to rein in a huge deficit, which has surged to 10.1 percent of gross domestic product after four years of overspending. (Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi and Andras Gergely)

AP - An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web video Saturday purporting to show the bodies of two American soldiers being dragged behind a truck, then set on fire in apparent retaliation for the rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman by U.S. troops from the same unit

Reuters - Severe storms crossing the south-central United States late on Friday and early on Saturday produced heavy rains and flooding and caused at least five deaths, local officials said.

By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 33 minutes ago BEIJING, - North Korea is planning to remove fuel rods at a nuclear reactor within the next three months in what would be a significant boost to its nuclear weapons capability, an American expert said Saturday. Selig Harrison, director of the Asia program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, said North Korea's vice foreign minister told him in Pyongyang this week the secretive communist regime would unload the rods at the Yongbyon reactor "beginning this fall, and no later than the end of the year." The North Korean official would neither confirm nor deny the country was planning to conduct its first known nuclear test, Harrison said. Last month, foreign intelligence reports said unusual activity at a possible testing site had been detected, sparking fears of an imminent test. The Yongbyon reactor has been at the center of U.S. concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The reactor's spent fuel rods can be mined for plutonium, which can then be used to construct nuclear bombs. Removing the fuel rods is "a significant new development because it underlines that North Korea is enhancing its weapons capability," Harrison said. "Every time they unload it, they are getting a new increment of plutonium to be reprocessed and they are adding to the number of weapons that they could make," he said. North Korea last removed fuel rods at the facility in June 2005 and was not due to do so again until June 2007, Harrison told reporters in Beijing shortly after arriving from a four-day stay in North Korea. "They are speeding it up because they want to use Yongbyon as leverage to get bilateral negotiations with the United States," he said. North Korea has long sought direct talks with Washington over its nuclear program, but the U.S. has insisted on six-nation negotiations that also include China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Those talks have been stalled since November 2005 because the North refuses to return until the U.S. lifts financial restrictions against it for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. Washington has refused to end them and said the issue is unrelated to the nuclear standoff. Earlier this week, Japan and Australia slapped fresh economic sanctions on North Korea for test-firing seven long-range missiles in July. The move was meant to pressure Pyongyang to return to the six-nation negotiations to abandon its nuclear program. Harrison has been an occasional visitor to North Korea and the North's secretive government has often used him to convey messages to the outside world. During this trip, Harrison said he met with Kim Yong Dae, vice president of the Supreme People's Assembly; Lt. Gen. Ri Chan Bok, a senior military figure; as well as Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan.

2 hours, 11 minutes ago SAN`A, Yemen - Yemen's president was re-elected to another seven-year term, grabbing more than 77 percent of the vote in the first serious balloting since he came to power 28 years ago, state-run TV reported late Saturday. His challenger, Faisal bin Shamlan, received 21.82 percent of the vote, according to a statement issued by the elections commission and read on Yemeni TV. More than 6 million of 9.2 registered voters cast ballots in the elections, held on Wednesday, the statement said.

By WILL GRAVES, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 16 minutes ago LOUISVILLE, Ky. - High winds, heavy rain and tornadoes pounded parts of the Midwest and the South, leaving six people dead and stranding others in trees and shelters while forecasters warned Saturday that the stormy weather was expected to continue. Officials were trying to "find and rescue anyone else we might have missed throughout the night," Tamara Roberts of the Sharp County, Ark., Sheriff's Office told Little Rock television station KATV. Stormy weather buffeted the region Friday. Areas in northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri received more than 10 inches of rain within 24 hours, said David Blanchard, a National Weather Service forecaster in Paducah, Ky. More storms and possibly tornadoes were forecast for Saturday. "There's so much moisture in the atmosphere, you could get a lot of rain in no time flat," said Brian Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Two tornadoes swept through south-central Missouri on Friday afternoon, damaging more than 100 homes and tearing off part of a roof at a middle school moments after a tornado drill. A firefighter videotaped two twisters moving through St. James, said Phelps County emergency management director Bruce Southard. He estimated the tornadoes were on the ground for 10 minutes. "It's devastating," he said. "We've got nice houses that are just tore to pieces." Devin Wilburn, 12, said students at St. James Middle School had just completed a tornado drill. Then, they interrupted their science test to rush back into the hallway for the real thing. The children knelt down and put their hands over their heads, he said. "I just heard a bunch of thunder and ripping, because the top of the roof came off," Devin said. No teachers, children or staff members were injured. Officials in Sharp County, Ark., worked Saturday to rescue people who were stranded after heavy rains flooded much of the county, including one person stuck in a tree, sheriff's officials said. Five people were killed in Kentucky, including two women who died trying to cross a flooded roadway early Saturday. Witnesses told rescue officials the women were swept away in a flooded creek, Fire Battalion Chief Mat Ragland said. Others killed included a Jessamine County woman who ran her pickup truck into high water, a motorist who skidded off Interstate 65 near Elizabethtown, and a woman in the southwestern part of the state whose car struck a guard rail. In northwest Arkansas, Deborah Massey, 51, died when her boat was struck by lightning as she and Preston Starritt, 36, both of Prairie Grove, tried to make it to shore, Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder said. Starritt was injured and treated at a hospital. In Kentucky, flooding forced more than 100 people out of a Louisville apartment complex, according to Mayor Jerry Abramson. Portions of Interstate 64 just east of Louisville were closed in both directions due to standing water. Dozens of cars were stranded, Abramson said. I-65 also was closed for a couple of hours in Elizabethtown. "At one point, just about every road in the county was flooded," said Michael Key, a Hardin County 911 dispatcher, after 5 inches of rain fell. Maggie DiPietro, 58, was among about two dozen people who sought shelter at an Elizabethtown community center. She said she woke up shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday and found about 2 inches of water in her home. "By the time the police came and rescued me, it was almost up to my calves," she said. Thousands across the region were without power Saturday, including more than 5,000 Louisville Gas & Electric customers who were in the dark.

By Anna Willard and David Morgan 30 minutes ago PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - France and the United States said on Saturday they could not confirm a report that Osama bin Laden had died and France launched a probe into how a secret document containing the claim was leaked. ADVERTISEMENT French regional daily L'Est Republican, published in Nancy, quoted a document from France's DGSE foreign intelligence service as saying the Saudi secret services were convinced the al Qaeda leader had died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August. Time magazine separately posted an article on its website citing an unidentified Saudi source, who claimed bin Laden was stricken with a water-borne disease and may already be dead. President Jacques Chirac told reporters bin Laden's death "has not been confirmed in any way whatsoever, and so I have no comment to make." "I was a bit surprised to see that a confidential note from the DGSE had been published," he said after a summit with leaders of Germany and Russia. The Saudi Interior Ministry was not available for comment. Officials in the United States, which has made capturing bin Laden a priority in its war on terrorism, were unable to confirm the account. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in New York: "No comment, no knowledge," when asked about the French article. A U.S. intelligence source separately said Washington had no evidence this report was any more credible than earlier rumors of bin Laden's demise. "We've heard these things before and have no reason to think this is any different," said the U.S. intelligence official, who asked not to be named. "There's just nothing we can point to to say this report has any more credence than other reports we've seen in the past," the official said. LEAK PROBE In Paris, Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie ordered an investigation into the leak of the classified DGSE document. L'Est Republican printed what it said was a copy of the report, dated September 21, and said it had been passed to Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin the same day. "According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," it read. "The information gathered by the Saudis indicates that the head of al Qaeda fell victim, while he was in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, to a very serious case of typhoid that led to a partial paralysis of his internal organs." The report, which was stamped "defense confidential" and with the initials of the French secret service, said Saudi Arabia first heard the information on September 4 and was waiting for more details before making an official announcement. Time magazine said its source claimed Saudi officials have received a number if reports in recent weeks that bin Laden had been struck by a water-borne illness and was likely dead, but had no solid proof. "He is very ill. He got a water-related sickness and it could be terminal. There are a lot of serious facts about things that have actually happened. There is a lot to it. But we don't have any concrete information to say that he is dead," Time quoted the source as saying. There was skepticism about whether Riyadh was well-placed to be the first to pick up on such a development. "If anyone was in the picture, I doubt it would be Saudi intelligence," a Western diplomat in Riyadh said. "Even if Saudi Arabia had information, they'd pass it on to the United States, not France. It doesn't ring true." A senior Pakistani government official said Islamabad had received no information from any foreign government that would corroborate the story. The Saudi-born bin Laden was based in Afghanistan until its Taliban government was overthrown by U.S.-backed forces after al Qaeda's September 11 attacks on the United States. Since then, U.S. and Pakistani officials have regularly said they believe bin Laden is hiding somewhere on the rugged border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bin Laden is rumored to have been suffering from kidney ailments and receiving dialysis treatment. His last videotaped message was released in late 2004, but several low-quality audio tapes have been released this year. Senior U.S. intelligence figures have cautioned against assuming that bin Laden's death or capture would automatically have a substantial impact in the war on terrorism. They note that the death in June of al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has failed to lead to any let-up in the violence there. (Additional reporting by Jon Boyle, Islamabad bureau, Mark Trevelyan in London, Paul Eckert in New York, Alister Bull in Washington, Andrew Hammond in Riyadh)

By ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press Writer 50 minutes ago PARIS - A leaked French intelligence document raises the possibility Osama bin Laden died of typhoid, but President Jacques Chirac said Saturday the report was "in no way whatsoever confirmed" and officials from Kabul to Washington expressed skepticism about its accuracy. There have been numerous reports over the years that bin Laden had been killed or that he was dangerously ill, but the al-Qaida leader has periodically released audiotapes appealing to followers and commenting on current news events. The regional French newspaper l'Est Republicain printed what it described as a copy of a confidential document from the DGSE intelligence service citing an uncorroborated report from a "usually reliable source" who said Saudi secret services were convinced that bin Laden had died. The document, dated Thursday, was sent to Chirac and other top French officials, the newspaper said. "This information is in no way whatsoever confirmed," Chirac said when asked about the document. "I have no comment." Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry offered no details. "I've heard the reports, but I have no information at all. I have no idea," spokesman Mansour al-Turki told The Associated Press. In Washington, Blair Jones, a presidential spokesman, said the White House could not confirm the report's accuracy. But two U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said U.S. agencies had no information to suggest bin Laden was dead or dying. A senior official in Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry said he was very skeptical of the document, noting past false reports of the death of bin Laden. He declined to let his name be used because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Tasnim Aslam, called the information "speculative," saying his government had no information on bin Laden. Many people suspect bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders are hiding in the Pakistani mountains along the border with Afghanistan. Among previous reports, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said during the U.S.-led offensive that toppled Afghanistan's Taliban regime in late 2001 that he was "reasonably sure" bin Laden had been killed by U.S. bombing raids on the Tora Bora caves. Bin Laden also was rumored to have kidney problems, but a physician detained by Pakistan on suspicion he was treating top Taliban and al-Qaida militants told AP in December 2002 that the al-Qaida leader was in excellent health when the physician saw him a year earlier. The Washington-based IntelCenter, which monitors terrorism communications, said it was not aware of reports on the Internet speculating about bin Laden and a life-threatening illness. "We've seen nothing from any al-Qaida messaging or other indicators that would point to the death of Osama bin Laden," IntelCenter director Ben N. Venzke told AP. Al-Qaida would likely release information of bin Laden's death fairly quickly if it were true, said Venzke, whose organization also provides counterterrorism intelligence services for the U.S. government. "They would want to release that to sort of control the way that it unfolds. If they wait too long, they could lose the initiative on it," he said. IntelCenter said the last time it could be sure bin Laden was alive was June 29, when al-Qaida released an audiotaped eulogy for al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. air strike in Iraq earlier that month. Chirac spoke at a news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Compiegne, France, where the leaders were meeting. Putin suggested leaks can be ways to manipulate. "When there are leaks ... one can say that (they) were done especially," he said. Chirac said he was "a bit surprised" at the leak and had asked Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie to investigate how the document was published. The document from DGSE, or Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure, indicated the information came from a single source. "According to a usually reliable source, Saudi security services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," it said. "The chief of al-Qaida was a victim of a severe typhoid crisis while in Pakistan on August 23, 2006," the document said. His geographic isolation meant medical assistance was impossible, the French report said, adding that his lower limbs were allegedly paralyzed. According to the document, Saudi security services were pursuing further details, notably the place of bin Laden's burial.

By Peter Graff and Alastair Macdonald 2 hours, 34 minutes ago BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb killed 34 people in Baghdad's Sadr City Shi'ite slum on Saturday as Iraq's minority Sunnis began the fasting month of Ramadan, which U.S. commanders said might see a rise in sectarian bloodshed. ADVERTISEMENT The bomb -- most likely a car bomb, according to police -- struck near a tanker distributing kerosene for stoves in Sadr City, whose poor residents are the power base of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia. In addition to the 34 people killed, 35 were injured, many badly burned. Sunni militants claimed responsibility, declaring the attack revenge for killings by Shi'ite militia. "This operation comes in reaction to the crimes of the Mehdi Army against our Sunni kin in Baghdad," the Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba -- Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions -- said in a claim posted on the Internet. "Our swords can reach the depth of your areas, so stop killing unarmed Sunnis." U.S. commanders had warned for weeks that they expected a surge of violence to accompany the holy month, having observed similar patterns in previous years. Shi'ites and Sunnis have separate systems for declaring Ramadan's start; Sunnis began observing it on Saturday and Shi'ites are expected to begin on Sunday or Monday. The Americans say they are determined to bring an end to sectarian killings in Baghdad, which have soared since an attack on a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in February. They have put in place a system of checkpoints and some fortifications around its perimeter, expected to be ready in the next few days. In a six-week-old security crackdown in the capital, a division of 15,000 American soldiers has secured scattered neighborhoods and is due to move into more. They say killings are fewer in the zones they have targeted. But violence in the city as a whole has worsened over the past two weeks, with hundreds of bodies found on the streets showing signs of torture and execution-style killing, and more frequent attacks on U.S. troops. A senior U.S. military official said the American force in Baghdad is not big enough to secure the city on its own. "That would take a lot more forces to do that," he said. "That would take Iraqi security forces." The U.S. commander of the Baghdad operation, Major General James Thurman, said on Friday that the Iraqi government had failed to deliver five battalions -- 3,000 men -- he had asked for as reinforcements. BEHEADINGS Among other violent incidents in the country, police in Tikrit said gunmen had beheaded nine people including some policemen after dragging them out of two cars in a nearby town. One American soldier and one Dane were killed by roadside bombs, and a U.S. State Department contractor was killed by a rocket attack on a British-guarded compound in Basra. The Iraqi Army said it captured a leader of the al Qaeda-allied militant group Ansar al-Sunna. Brigadier Qasim al-Moussawi told Reuters that Muntasir al-Jibouri -- held with two others overnight in a village near Muqdadiya, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad -- was Ansar's leader in Diyala province. The group denied in an Internet statement that any of its leaders were captured. Other Sunni militant groups distributed violent videos. One, aired on the Arabiya television network, was apparently the first to show the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayub al- Masri also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, since he replaced Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, who was killed by U.S. forces in June. The station said Masri shot dead a Turkish prisoner on the tape, although it did not broadcast the killing or any sound. Another video, which appeared on the Internet, purported to show the bodies of two U.S. soldiers being dragged behind a truck and burned, after they were captured near Mahmudiya south of Baghdad in June. A spokesman for the Accordance Front party said its leaders met Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to urge protection for Sunnis after gunmen attacked a Sunni area in Baghdad on Friday. Maliki has vowed to use his new security forces to curb militias but it is unclear if he can make good on his promise. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Mussab al-Khairalla and Hiba Moussa)

By WILLIAM McCALL, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 23, 5:44 AM ET PORTLAND, Ore. - U.S. Justice Department lawyers filed an appeal Friday aimed at blocking a lawsuit by a former Islamic charity that has challenged a Bush administration secret surveillance program. ADVERTISEMENT U.S. District Judge Garr M. King ruled earlier this month that a lawsuit by the defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation chapter in Ashland could go forward without damaging national security. But government lawyers argue that state secrets would be revealed if the lawsuit is allowed to proceed. The case hinges on a classified document that U.S. Treasury officials inadvertently turned over to Al-Haramain lawyers after the charity was declared a global terrorist organization. The charity's attorneys say the document shows that two U.S. lawyers for Al-Haramain and at least one of its officials were under electronic surveillance in 2004. Justice Department lawyers have argued the document falls under the "state secrets privilege," allowing a judge to dismiss a lawsuit if it could damage national security by revealing state secrets. The appeal filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said "the district court is wrongly attempting to create some form of secret adversarial proceedings, and, in doing so, is raising a serious danger of disclosure of important national security information." Steve Goldberg, a Portland attorney representing the charity, said the appeal could delay the case by a couple of years. He also said Judge King has been careful in handling security concerns. "The government keeps insisting that national security will be greatly threatened if we proceed," Goldberg said. But the judge is "being very sensitive in how the case proceeds to protect the document, so again I think the government's concerns are not justified, given the way the case is being handled," Goldberg said. Calls to the U.S. attorney's office were not returned. The National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program has been challenged in other federal courts since The New York Times revealed it last year.