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2004 was 4th-hottest on record, U.N. says

BUENOS AIRES - 2004, punctuated by four powerful hurricanes in the Caribbean and deadly typhoons lashing Asia, was the fourth-hottest on record, extending a trend since 1990 that has registered the 10 warmest years, a U.N. weather agency said Wednesday.

The current year was also the most expensive for the insurance industry in coping worldwide with hurricanes, typhoons and other weather-related natural disasters, according to new figures released by U.N. environmental officials.

The hurricanes of 2004 caused more than $43-billion in damage in the Caribbean and the United States. Natural disasters across the world in the first 10 months of the year cost the insurance industry just over $35-billion, up from $16-billion in 2003.

Michel Jarraud, the World Meteorological Organization secretary-general, said the warming and increased storm activity could not be attributed to any particular cause, but were part of a global warming trend that was likely to continue.

HAVANA - U.S. diplomats on Wednesday refused to take down their offices' trimmings of Santa Claus, candy canes and white lights wrapped around palm trees, ignoring a demand by Cuba to remove Christmas decorations that include a reference to dissidents jailed by Fidel Castro's government.

The element that irked the Cuban authorities most was a sign among the decorations that reads "75," a reference to 75 Cuban dissidents jailed last year, U.S. Interest Section chief James Cason said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher defended the decorations and said there are no plans to take them down until after the holidays.

The "75" sign "shows our solidarity with Cubans who struggle for democracy and freedom, when we think it's appropriate, at the holiday season, to remember ... these people who are missing because of political repression," Boucher said.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. military said Wednesday it has at least six open cases of prisoners who died in custody in Afghanistan dating back to 2002, but said it has taken steps to ensure against abuse of detainees.

Amid the fallout over abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Charles Jacoby Jr. was dispatched in May to examine treatment of current detainees at the two U.S. prisons and 20 "field holding sites" in Afghanistan.

His report, which is still under review with no time set for release, found no evidence of abuse, Maj. Mark McCann said at a news conference Wednesday in Kabul.

However, the report does not examine earlier incidents, including the deaths of prisoners, and the Washington Post has reported that Jacoby found many shortcomings, including inadequate enforcement of approved interrogation rules.

JERUSALEM - Israel's foreign minister on Wednesday embraced the U.S.-backed "road map" leading to a Palestinian state and conditionally warmed up to Syrian peace overtures - more signs of movement on Mideast peace in the post-Yasser Arafat era.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom called for reconvening the 2003 summit that launched the "road map," pledging negotiations with the new Palestinian leadership and with Syria if they fight militant violence against Israel.

Shalom's speech at an annual security conference in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, marked the first time an Israeli official endorsed the "road map" in the year since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon put forward his plan to pull Israeli settlements out of the Gaza Strip and a small part of the West Bank.