World in brief

Senator: Annan should quit because of corruption

UNITED NATIONS - Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican who is leading one of five U.S. congressional investigations into the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, says Secretary-General Kofi Annan should resign.

Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and dozens of other countries rallied to support the U.N. chief - but the United States did not.

President Bush twice on Thursday refused to say whether Annan should resign, and didn't use the opportunities to back him. Instead, Bush demanded "a full and fair and open accounting" of the oil-for-food program, saying that is essential for U.S. taxpayers to continue supporting the United Nations and "for the integrity of the organization."

Coleman wrote in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal that Annan should resign because "the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch."

The United Nations rejected Coleman's call for Annan's resignation, saying no country has asked him to step down, and more than 3,000 U.N. staff members have signed a letter of support.

WASHINGTON - U.S. military panels reviewing the detention of foreigners as enemy combatants are allowed to use evidence gained by torture in deciding whether to keep them imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the government conceded in court Thursday.

The acknowledgment by Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle came during a U.S. District Court hearing on lawsuits brought by some of the 550 foreigners imprisoned at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The lawsuits challenge their detention without charges for up to three years so far.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon asked if a detention would be illegal if it were based solely on evidence gathered by torture, because "torture is illegal. We all know that."

Boyle replied that if the military's combatant status review tribunals "determine that evidence of questionable provenance were reliable, nothing in the due process clause (of the Constitution) prohibits them from relying on it."

MARAGUNDON, Philippines - A powerful typhoon sliced through the Philippines today, forcing more than 160,000 people to flee their homes to higher ground even as rescuers struggled to find the missing from an earlier storm that killed more than 420 people.

There was an unconfirmed report that more than 1,000 were dead or unaccounted for from the typhoon that hit the Philippines this week. Civil defense officials said at least 422 people were confirmed dead and another 177 missing. The military reported a toll of 479 dead and 560 missing, but regional commander Maj. Gen. Pedro Cabuay cautioned the figures were based on numbers provided by local officials that could not be immediately confirmed.

LONDON - An Iranian opposition group asserted Thursday that the Islamic Republic is developing a new series of missiles with the capability to strike Western Europe and is seeking ways to arm them with chemical or nuclear warheads.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran held a news conference at the Parliament building in London to outline what it said are advanced weapons delivery systems being manufactured in secret by Tehran. The group, which is tied to the anti-Iranian guerrilla group Mujahadeen e-Khalq, has been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department and the European Union for its violent activities against the Iranian government, a charge it denies.

Although the group did not give a precise source or documentation for its accusations, organizers pointed out that it first revealed the secret Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and Arak.

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