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World in brief

Putin: Iran poses no nuclear threat, so business as usual

By wire services
Published February 19, 2005

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he is convinced Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons and announced plans to visit the country, showing strong support for Tehran a week before a summit with President Bush.

Putin's expression of faith contradicts U.S. suspicions about the intentions of Iran, which Bush has labeled part of an "axis of evil" seeking weapons of mass destruction and supporting terrorists.

"The latest steps from Iran confirm that Iran does not intend to produce nuclear weapons," Putin said at a meeting with Iranian National Security Council chief Hassan Rowhani. He said Russia "will continue to develop relations in all spheres, including the peaceful use of nuclear energy."

Russia is building a nuclear reactor for a power plant in Iran, an $800-million project which the United States fears could be used to help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.

Russia has friendly ties with Iran and sees it as an important trade market for its industrial goods and services.

Bush said Friday the United States does not intend to attack Iran and he expressed hopes that a European diplomatic initiative would persuade Tehran to abandon any nuclear weapons project.

PRETORIA, South Africa - Deaths in South Africa increased by 57 percent in the five years ending in 2003, with AIDS and related illnesses among the leading causes in adults, the state statistical service reported Friday.

AIDS was the fifth most common natural cause of death reported in South Africans aged 15-49 in 2001, the last year for which detailed figures were included in the report. The AIDS virus accounted for more than 7,500 - or 3.8 percent - of deaths in that age group.

The United Nations and World Health Organization say at least 600 South Africans of all ages die every day of AIDS-related causes.

Government officials acknowledged many AIDS deaths could have been attributed to associated illnesses like tuberculosis, influenza and pneumonia because of the stigma still associated with AIDS and the HIV virus.

TB, influenza and pneumonia accounted for 28.3 percent of deaths in 15 to 49-year-olds in 2001. Together with cerebrovascular disease, they also emerged as the leading causes of death overall.

The data was collected from more than 3-million death notification forms submitted to the Department of Home Affairs between 1997 and 2003.

The number of reported deaths rose from 318,287 in 1998 to 499,268 in 2002. Only percentage increases were given for 2003.

The steady increase in reported deaths was partly associated with population growth and improved notification, said statistician-general Pali Lehohla.

DUBLIN, Ireland - Police have uncovered an Irish Republican Army money-laundering operation but cannot confirm yet whether cash worth nearly $5-million seized in nationwide raids came from a Belfast bank robbery, the government said Friday.

A suspected IRA member was charged and five other people were interrogated.

Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell, said police had just begun to expose a wider IRA network with sophisticated money-laundering techniques. He called it "a colossal crime machine, laundering huge sums of money."

Don Bullman, a 30-year-old chef, was arraigned in Dublin's Special Criminal Court, the three-judge panel that handles terror-related cases in Ireland, on a charge of membership in the IRA.

HAVANA - In a rare display of public dissent, the wives of several Cuban dissidents - wearing pictures of their husbands on their shirts - marched to Revolution Plaza on Friday to demand amnesty for all political prisoners.

The women delivered a letter with their demands to state offices.

Loyda Valdes, whose husband Alfredo Felipe Fuentes is serving a 26-year sentence, said "the apathy of Cuban authorities" had "practically forced" her to be there.

The women marched 45 minutes through Havana to reach the plaza before delivering the letter, which bore the signatures of more than 1,000 friends and relatives.

BOSTON - An American translator who admitted taking classified documents from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was sentenced Friday to 20 months in prison.

With time already served, Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, 32, could be out in three weeks.

Mehalba, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen and civilian Arabic translator, told the judge he exercised "very poor judgment," but said he never intended to use the files for any illicit purpose. Some or all charges were dropped against three others - a Muslim chaplain, another interpreter and an Army Reserve colonel.

[Last modified February 19, 2005, 00:58:04]