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Russia and the United States have made progress on reaching a new deal to cut vast Cold War arsenals of nuclear weapons, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying on Thursday by local news agencies.
   President Barack Obama and Kremlin chief Dmitry Medvedev agreed in July the outlines of a preliminary deal to replace the landmark 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-1) but negotiators are facing a host of technical issues in talks.
   Lavrov said negotiators had made progress on difficult issues and would report to both presidents when they meet on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh later this month.
   ‘We will have something to report by Pittsburgh,’ Lavrov was quoted as saying. Lavrov said he was confident that a replacement to the START treaty would be found before it expires in December.
   Finding agreement on a replacement for START-1, signed by George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev just months before the close of the Cold War, is seen by both sides as a way to ‘reset’ relations after the friction of recent years. But many hurdles still remain before a deal can be inked, including US plans to deploy missile defence units in Europe.
   ‘We need to resolve many, rather difficult questions involving the security of Russia and the United States,’ Lavrov was quoted as saying.

Israel has embarked on a charm offensive in Africa, sending its foreign minister on a rare tour of some of the continent’s key capitals aimed notably at countering Iran’s rising influence.
   Avigdor Lieberman and a large business and military delegation kicked off the tour on Wednesday with a stop in Ethiopia and flew on to Kenya Thursday evening.
   The hawkish minister was to conclude the tour with trips to Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana.
   Lieberman was quick to press African countries to make good use of their ties with Arab countries ‘to help promote moderation and reconciliation in the Middle East.’
   ‘Indeed, within the African Union itself it is very important that the decisions and activities of African states reflect a positive and constructive approach, one that rejects one-sided decisions against Israel,’ he said in Addis.
   His comments were a response to comments made in Tripoli by Libyan leader and current African Union chairman Moamer Gaddhafi, who claimed that Israel was ‘behind all of Africa’s conflicts.’
   For this rare tour of the continent by its most senior diplomat, Israel chose a selection of historic allies and economic powerhouses in what observers say appeared to be a way of countering a diplomatic push by Iran.
   ‘Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s February visit to Nairobi was very negatively received in Israel,’ a Nairobi-based diplomat said.

Gabon slapped an overnight curfew on its economic hub Port-Gentil as opposition supporters went on the rampage Thursday after the son of the oil-rich nation’s late leader was declared winner of a bitter presidential election.
   ‘The curfew went into effect on Thursday from 8:00pm (1900 GMT) to 6 am’ on Friday and will be repeated as long as necessary if calm does not prevail, the interior ministry said after protesters torched a French consulate in the city of 80,000 and attacked a prison.
   Disturbances were also reported in several districts of the political capital Libreville after officials said Ali Bongo had won the contest to succeed his father, Omar Bongo Ondimba, with around 42 percent of the vote.
   Crowds of young men chanted ‘Death to the Whites’ as Paris told around 10,000 French nationals not to leave their homes amid rumours the former colonial power had conspired to fix the result.
   The shells of burnt-out cars littered highways around the capital while demonstrators had set fire to piles of tyres and erected makeshift barricades.
   By nightfall, Libreville’s streets were all but deserted except for the police and army.
   A number of youths suspected of being involved in violence in Libreville were arrested, public television and a witness said.
    ‘Measures are in place to ensure the security of French citizens ... It is recommended to French people to stay at home,’ international development minister Alain Joyandet told AFP in Paris.
   He said that around 80 French soldiers — out of 1,000 stationed at France’s permanent base in the country — had been ‘called out’ in Port-Gentil following the attack on the consulate and on French companies Total and Schlumberger.
   Violence also erupted in Nkembo, east of the capital. ‘People are breaking anything that they can, they have smashed stores. It is a mess,’ said resident Benjamin Ngouan.
   UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon urged ‘calm and restraint by all concerned so that tensions do not escalate,’ his deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said at UN headquarters in New York.
   The United States urged Gabonese authorities and citizens ‘to respond to the results peacefully,’ State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said.
   After several delays, the electoral commission finally announced on Thursday that Ali Bongo, a former defence minister, had won the presidency, succeeding his father who ruled for 41 years until his death in June.

Swine flu has begun to spread through American universities where more than 1,600 cases of A(H1N1) infections were recorded in the first week of classes, a health group said Thursday.
   Some 1,640 new cases were reported at 165 universities across the country that participate in surveillance conducted by the American College Health Association.
   There has been only one hospitalization and no fatalities attributed to the virus among the more than two million students who attend the schools, according to ACHA. There are more than 18 million college and university students nationwide.
   But with more than 550 deaths attributed to swine flu across the United States since the virus emerged in April, and with 40 percent of global A(H1N1) fatalities being among young adults in good health, education authorities are trying to mitigate what ACHA has described as the ‘significant risk’ of swine flu’s spread in universities.
    ‘It is a lot of cases and it’s actually only one week,’ ACHA president James Turner said, referring to the 1,640 new infections.
    ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw many more cases arrive on campuses and we see the outbreak accelerate,’ he told AFP.
   Despite the concerns, Turner said he has spoken with several colleagues at universities across the country and that they report ‘a very mild disease that for the most part is not leaving students seriously ill.
    ‘They feel miserable for three or four days but they don’t seem to be getting complications, or pneumonia,’ he said.
   Many universities are taking no chances, however, and there have been several reports of sick students confining themselves to their dorm rooms and student bodies being made aware of the dangers of swine flu.

South African president Jacob Zuma on Friday warned his government will not tolerate ‘anarchy’ during protests, after recent violence over soldiers’ pay and a new public transport system.
   Two people were shot this week as Johannesburg rolled out a new bus system ahead of the 2010 football World Cup, while last week more than 1,200 soldiers tried to scale the fence around Zuma’s offices and torched cars outside.
    ‘Lawlessness and anarchy will not be tolerated from any segment of our society, regardless of the grievances,’ Zuma said in his weekly letter to the nation.
   Zuma called the clash between soldiers and police ‘unfortunate’, while calling the bus shooting ‘totally unacceptable’.
   ‘This cannot be how we wish to solve problems,’ he said.
   ‘This cannot be how we wish to voice our displeasure at anything that government is doing, especially since we emphasise that we want to build an accessible, responsive and interactive government,’ Zuma said.
   ‘It just cannot be that a public transport system aimed at improving the lives of our people has to be guarded because some of our compatriots are unhappy about it and want to take out their anger on commuters,’ he added.
   The soldiers’ protest over wages sparked a national debate about discipline within the ranks of a force whose members earn as little as 2,250 rand (290 dollars, 200 euros) a month, half of entry-level teachers.
   The transport shooting highlighted tensions between the government and the private minibus taxi industry, which currently dominates commuter routes.
   Transport minister Sibusiso Ndebele told reporters Friday that the government would step up efforts to negotiate with the taxis to incorporate them into the new system in time for the World Cup.
   ‘Our key responsibility is to get people to the stadium safely and on time. We also need to get the fans out of the stadium back home and to the hotels in safety,’ he said.
   ‘Without adequate transport, there will be no fans in the stadium. Without fans inside the stadium, there is no World Cup.’

A huge wildfire burning in the mountains above Los Angeles, now the largest ever in the county, was started by arson and will be investigated as a homicide, authorities said on Thursday.
   The so-called Station Fire has killed two firefighters, destroyed 64 homes and torched an area the size of Chicago in the nine days it has roared across the rugged San Gabriel Mountains overlooking Los Angeles.
   ‘After a forensic examination at the point of origin, arson investigators have concluded that the Station Fire was the result of an act of arson,’ US Forest Service Commander Rita Wears said.
   The deaths of Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Ted Hall and firefighter Arnaldo Quinones, who were killed when their vehicle plunged 800 feet (244 metres) from a road, made the case a homicide, Wears said.
   Authorities did not offer details about how the fire was started but an area near the city of La Canada-Flintridge, north of Los Angeles, has been cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape since Wednesday.
   It was not clear if any suspects had been identified.
   As of Thursday evening, the Station Fire had blackened 145,000 acres (59,000 hectares), or about 226 square miles (585 sq km), making it the largest wildfire recorded in Los Angeles county. It could ultimately become one of the top 10 in state history, in terms of size.

Madagascar’s army Friday turned down a call by opposition groups that it should step in and take control of the country’s institutions for an interim period.
   ‘The armed forces refuse the putting in place of a military authority,’ the head of the gendarmerie General Claude Ravelomanana said.
   ‘We will condemn any appointment that is not approved by the relevant military authorities,’ he added.
   On Thursday Madagascar’s three main opposition groups said the top three jobs in a transitional administration should be handed to the army.
   The proposal came after the movements of three former presidents and that of the Indian Ocean island’s current leader, Andry Rajoelina, failed to agree on how to split posts following power-sharing talks in Maputo.

Britain and the United States defended their strategy in Afghanistan Friday amid mounting criticism over the rising death toll from war-weary voters and questions about the government in Kabul.
   A keynote speech by British prime minister Gordon Brown was overshadowed by the resignation of a ministerial aide in protest at London's stance in Afghanistan, where over 200 soldiers have been killed.
   And in Washington, US defence secretary Robert Gates insisted on Thursday that the war is not 'slipping through the administration's fingers,' but admitted: 'There is a limited time for us to show that this is working.'
    'We are mindful of that, we understand the concerns of many Americans in that area but we think that we now have the resources and the right approach to start making some headway,' Gates told reporters.
   In London, Brown launched a staunch defence of Britain's involvement in Afghanistan, pledging it will not walk away when its own security was at stake.
   'People ask what success in Afghanistan would look like. The answer is that we will have succeeded when our troops are coming home because the Afghans are doing the job themselves,' he said, according to excerpts of his speech pre-released by his office.
   But his message was clouded by the resignation late Thursday of Eric Joyce, a parliamentary aide to defence secretary Bob Ainsworth, who warned there were problems in Afghanistan 'which need fixing with the greatest urgency'.
   Joyce, a lawmaker and former army major, also criticised NATO allies in Afghanistan, saying many of them 'do far too little,' leaving Britain to shoulder more of the combat role.
   Brown has faced growing questions over the scope and purpose of the mission amid a surge in British troop deaths which has sparked a row over whether soldiers have adequate resources to combat Taliban insurgents.
   'Each time I ask myself if we are doing the right thing by being in Afghanistan and if we can justify sending our young men and women to fight for this cause, my answer has always been yes,' Brown will say later Friday in a keynote speech at the Institute of Strategic Studies think-tank in London.
   US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Michael Mullen meanwhile stressed that 'there is a sense of urgency' and 'time is not on our side' in Afghanistan - but he rejected some commentators' suggestions that US troops withdraw now.

North Korea said Friday it was closer to a second way of making nuclear weapons, a move analysts saw as a new tactic to put pressure on the international community after a month of conciliatory gestures.
   The announcement coincided with a visit to Asia by chief US envoy for the North, Stephen Bosworth, to discuss ways to bring Pyongyang back to long-stalled negotiations on giving up its efforts to build a nuclear arsenal.
    'Experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into completion phase,' the KCNA news agency quoted North Korea's United Nations delegation as saying in a letter to the head of the UN Security Council.
   The United States has long suspected the North of having a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons. Experts have said it has not developed anything near a full-scale enrichment programme.
   The North said its latest moves were in response to tighter sanctions.
   Those sanctions have hurt the impoverished North's arms trade, one of its few significant exports, and analysts said it may be angered its latest attempts at conciliation with the outside world have been largely rebuffed.
   'Now they are taking the road that they know will drive a response out of all countries - the military way -- and leaving them to decide what to do,' said Cho Myung-chul, a specialist on the North at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.
   North Korea added that reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods was at its final phase and extracted plutonium was being weaponised.
   'We are prepared for both dialogue and sanctions. If some permanent members of the UNSC wish to put sanctions first before dialogue, we would respond with bolstering our nuclear deterrence first before we meet them in a dialogue.'

Japan's incoming centre-left government on Friday promised a more vocal foreign policy as it reached out to Asian neighbours China and South Korea and pledged to stay tough on North Korea.
   Yukio Hatoyama, the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, which ousted a conservative government in a sweeping election win Sunday, signalled that the world's number two economy wants its voice to be heard.
   'It's been said that Japanese diplomacy is quite weak in multilateral talks,' Hatoyama, who takes over as premier on September 16, told a Tokyo conference before meetings with the Chinese and South Korean ambassadors.
    'We should not have that reputation during the DPJ's diplomacy. We want to contribute to Japan's national interest and to world prosperity through cooperation between politicians, bureaucrats and the private sector.'
   Hatoyama, who spoke with US President Barack Obama, UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon and other leaders earlier this week, is due to attend the United Nations general assembly and a G20 summit in Pittsburgh later this month.
   The premier-in-waiting caused ripples in Washington last week with an essay that criticised 'US-led globalism' and suggested a stronger diplomatic orientation toward Asia, although Hatoyama has also often stressed that the post-war Japan-US alliance would remain the foundation of his foreign policy.
   The DPJ's secretary general, Katsuya Okada, who is expected to take a key cabinet posting under Hatoyama, stressed on Friday that Japan would simultaneously seek good relations with the United States and old foe China.
    'It's futile to talk about choosing between Japan-China relations and Japan-US relations,' he said. 'Both of the relationships are very important.' Okada also pledged that the new government would maintain a tough stance against North Korea after the communist regime said Friday it was in the final stages of an enriched uranium nuclear weapons programme.
    'We will respond with stern sanctions' against Pyongyang's missile and nuclear activities, he said.
   In a letter to the UN Security Council, the North said earlier Friday that an experiment to enrich uranium had entered its final phase. It also said it was building more atomic bombs from spent reactor fuel rods.
    'It's extremely regrettable that North Korea ignored the UN Security Council decisions and took such provocative actions,' said Okada. 'It's important to let the North Koreans know -- by keeping sanctions against them -- that there is nothing to be gained for them if they take such a difficult attitude.'

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon raised with Sri Lanka's human rights minister on Thursday allegations that his country's troops summarily executed Tamil rebels, the United Nations said.
   British television aired a video last week that, according to a Sri Lankan advocacy group, shows the troops killing unarmed, naked, bound and blindfolded Tamils during the army's final assault to smash Tamil Tiger rebels earlier this year.
   Ban discussed the refugee crisis that followed the defeat of the Tigers during a meeting in Geneva with Mahinda Samarasinghe, Sri Lanka's minister for disaster management and human rights, the United Nations said.
   'They talked about the importance of reconciliation,' said a summary of the meeting issued in New York. 'They also discussed accountability, particularly in the light of the recent accusations of extrajudicial executions.'
   UN officials confirmed that Ban had raised with Samarasinghe the allegations in the video, broadcast by Britain's Channel 4 television, which said it got the footage from advocacy group Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka.
   The officials did not say how Samarasinghe had responded, but Sri Lanka's government has dismissed the video as fake.

Three online writers in Vietnam who touched on the sensitive topic of China relations have been arrested in a 'mounting crackdown' which drew strong condemnation Friday from a global press watchdog.
   The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists called for the immediate release of Pham Doan Trang, a journalist for prominent news website VietnamNet, and Bui Thanh Hieu, who blogs under the name Nguoi Buon Gio (Wind Trader).
   Both were arrested late last week allegedly
   over 'national security' issues.
   'Vietnam is already one of the world's worst violators of Internet freedom, and recent actions only underscore that reputation,' CPJ's Asia programme director, Bob Dietz, said in a statement.
   The mother of another blogger confirmed to AFP on Friday that her daughter, Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, 30, was arrested by about 15 officers around midnight Wednesday at their home in the southern coastal city of Nha Trang.
   Quynh blogged under the name 'Me Nam'.
   Her mother, Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan, said Quynh was accused of abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, a crime which can lead to a prison term.
   All three had posted articles about sovereignty issues in the South China Sea, where Vietnam and China are engaged in a boundary dispute over the Spratley and Paracel archipelagos.
   Both Wind Trader and Quynh had also written about a bauxite mining project which is controversial partly because a Chinese company has been granted a major contract.

Hundreds of angry Han Chinese faced off with police Friday in the restive city of Urumqi, one day after mass protests over mysterious syringe attacks that have revived ethnic tensions here.
   The fresh demonstration came as thousands of security forces locked down the capital of north-western Xinjiang region, where violence erupted in July between mainly Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese, leaving nearly 200 dead.
   About 1,000 protesters threw plastic bottles at a similar number of police near People's Square, where the main demonstrations took place Thursday. The crowd dispersed an hour later as hundreds more police swarmed the area.
   Some Han Chinese residents have blamed the Uighurs for the hundreds of reported syringe attacks in the city, but official reports have been vague about the identities of the perpetrators, 21 of whom have been detained.
   'People are getting stabbed just walking down the streets by other passers-by. They are Uighurs who are doing the stabbings,' said a 52-year-old Han woman surnamed Liu, who lives near Urumqi's Uighur district.
   State media, quoting police, said a total of 476 people had sought treatment in hospital after being attacked with syringes in Urumqi since mid-August. But the report noted that only 89 of them had 'obvious signs of needle sites.'
   No one had been infected or poisoned in the assaults, Xinhua news agency reported, and it remained unclear what the syringes contained, if anything.
   The needle attacks continued on Friday, with two victims stabbed in the early morning telling their stories to an AFP reporter at a local police station.
   'He was really tall, he was a Uighur for sure. But before I could get a good look at him, he ran off,' Liu Yan, a 21-year-old Han woman said with a pained look on her face, showing a pinprick wound on her hand.

A top official said on Friday supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged MPs to approve President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cabinet, the latest sign of open backing for the hardliner from Iran's powerful spiritual guide.
   The ISNA news agency quoted Mohammad Reza Bahonar, deputy speaker of parliament, as saying that if Khamenei had not backed the proposed line-up, eight or nine nominees would have been rejected in Thursday's confidence vote.
   'The message of the leader played a big role,' Bahonar said.
   The conservative-dominated parliament approved 18 out of 21 members of the proposed cabinet, rejecting two of three women nominees and Ahmadinejad's pick for energy minister.
    'If we had not received the leader's recommendations, probably eight or nine ministers would have failed to win the vote of confidence, and that would not have been a good start for the government,' said Bahonar, a well-known critic of the president.
   He said Khamenei's 'vision' prevented this from happening and 'changed the view' of the majlis or parliament.
   'If we had not received the message of the leader, the ministers of oil, industry, commerce, cooperatives, transport and foreign affairs would have been rejected,' Bahonar added.
   Khamenei has the final say in Iran's national issues and has openly defended Ahmadinejad's re-election despite massive public protests against his June 12 victory which triggered the Islamic republic's worst ever internal crisis.

The Dalai Lama left Taiwan Friday after a five-day religious mission that tested the island's rapidly warming relationship with China.
   Tibet's exiled spiritual leader left from the Taoyuan International Airport outside Taipei, seen off by more than 100 supporters and monks shouting 'Long Live Dalai Lama'.
   The Dalai Lama arrived in Taiwan at the start of the week for a tour primarily aimed at comforting victims of Typhoon Morakot, which battered the island in early August, killing at least 614.
   Although he said repeatedly that his visit was 'non-political', he told local media that only time would tell if there would be an impact on Taiwan's ties with China, which considers the island part of its territory.

A court in junta-ruled Myanmar agreed Friday to hear an appeal by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi against her conviction that extended her house arrest by another 18 months, her lawyer said.
   The Nobel laureate was found guilty last month of breaching security laws following an internationally condemned trial that was sparked by an incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside mansion.
   'The court agreed to hear the appeal. Both sides, the government and ourselves, have to give our arguments on September 18,' her main lawyer Kyi Win said.
   Her lawyers had lodged the appeal at Yangon divisional court on Thursday but the judges could have refused it.
   The court also agreed to hear appeals by two female aides who live with Suu Kyi and had also been convicted, Kyi Win said.
   'It is the right decision to accept the case. We appeal for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,' said Nyan Win, the spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

A millionaire Australian property developer who once tried to sue the sultan of Brunei was gunned down in front of his young son outside their exclusive Sydney home, the police said Friday.
   Scottish-born Michael McGurk, 45, was shot once in the head by a lone gunman as he stepped
   from his luxury Mercedes in the harbourside
   suburb of Cremorne with his 10-year-old son on Thursday night, said Superintendent Geoff Beresford.
   Beresford would not confirm claims McGurk had feared a hitman was on his trail and had approached police to ask for protection, but said the developer appeared to be the victim of a callous and 'very targeted' act.
   'We are very open-minded at the moment but what I can confirm is the deceased is very well-known to the police,' he said.
   'This gentleman did have a lot of associates that are also known to us, and those inquiries are well and truly underway.'