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Epsilon becomes hurricane, doesn't threaten land

By wire services
Published December 3, 2005

MIAMI - Epsilon strengthened into a record 14th hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday - two days after the 2005 season officially ended. Forecasters said it posed no threat to land.

Epsilon had maximum sustained winds near 75 mph at 10 p.m., according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was centered about 1,115 miles west of the Azores and moving northeast at near 10 mph.

The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and officially ended Wednesday.

Epsilon was only the fifth December hurricane recorded in more than 120 years, National Weather Service hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart said.

By December, upper-atmosphere winds are normally strong enough to keep storms in check, Stewart said, "but about every 20 years or so, the atmosphere allows it to happen." The latest that a hurricane formed in the Caribbean was Dec. 30, which happened in 1954, he said.

No other major storms have appeared on the horizon, he said.

Forecasters say 2006 could be another brutal hurricane year because the Atlantic is in a period of frenzied activity that began in 1995 and could last at least another decade.

Government hurricane experts blame the increase on a natural cycle of higher sea temperatures, lower wind shear and other factors, though some scientists cite global warming.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is investigating a report made Friday that Russia struck a deal to provide Iran with surface-to-air missiles.

The Russian Vedomosti business daily reported Friday the two countries signed a deal for 29 Tor M-1 missiles. The newspaper cited an unidentified manager at a military-industrial enterprise.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We are at this point evaluating these reports" and that he could not validate them.

The United States and Russia support efforts by the European Union to persuade Iran to halt development of nuclear weapons in exchange for economic incentives.

Russia, which has a long and lucrative relationship with Iran, has offered to try to resolve a key dispute by offering to enrich uranium for an Iranian civilian nuclear energy program as a safeguard against Iran using enrichment for weapons purposes.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Wednesday that the Bush administration had not endorsed the Russian proposal and that "we continue to take a hard line" on Iran's not controlling a process that could produce nuclear weapons.

Burns said sidetracked negotiations between Iran and Britain, France and Germany probably would be resumed in early January.

CARACAS, Venezuela - A U.S. official on Friday denied claims by President Hugo Chavez that Washington masterminded an opposition boycott of elections and was trying to foment an overthrow of his leftist government.

The two biggest opposition parties also denied any U.S. links to the election protest.

Chavez accused President Bush late Thursday of being behind the withdrawal of Venezuela's major opposition parties from Sunday's congressional elections, saying he had proof the CIA was "encouraging this new conspiracy." He provided no details.

"The decisions made by the political parties were their decisions alone," U.S. Embassy spokesman Brian Penn said. "We are simply not responsible for everything that goes on in Venezuela."

Penn said the Venezuelan government has made "dozens" of baseless accusations against the United States and insisted, "We support the democratic process."

Opposition parties have claimed fair elections cannot be held because conditions are biased toward pro-Chavez candidates. Chavez accuses them of pulling out on Bush's instructions and because they realize they will suffer big losses. The opposition candidates have trailed in the polls.

ATHENS, Greece - Members of a Greek group whose assassination of a CIA station chief launched a quarter-century terror campaign appeared in court Friday to appeal their convictions.

The anti-American group November 17 is blamed for 23 killings and dozens of bomb and rocket attacks since CIA station chief Richard Welch was assassinated on Dec. 23, 1975.

Fifteen members were convicted in 2003 and received sentences ranging from eight years to multiple life terms.

Some relatives of the victims attended the hearing in a courtroom in Korydallos Prison in the Greek capital, Athens.

The victims included four Americans, a British defense attache, a Turkish diplomat and Greek businessmen and politicians.

The appeal could exceed the nine-month duration of the first trial. Several hundred witnesses are expected to be called.

November 17, which followed a blend of Marxist and nationalist ideologies, was named after the date of a student-led uprising in 1973 that helped topple the 1967-74 military dictatorship in Greece.

WASHINGTON - U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill expressed impatience with North Korea over long-running talks aimed at ending that nation's nuclear weapons program. "We can't just sit there stalemated session after stalemated session," he said Friday.

"I don't want to threaten walkouts," said Hill, an assistant secretary of state. "But I do want to see progress."

Five nations have been talking intermittently with North Korea since August 2003 with only halting progress. They are currently on hiatus.

Hill said he assumed that bargaining would begin again around January and that preliminary meetings might be held in South Korea, another of the countries engaged in the talks. Besides the United States and North Korea, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia are also involved.

BEIJING - China's chief environmental regulator quit Friday, taking the blame for a chemical spill that shut off water to millions and strained relations with Russia, as the government sought to show it will hold officials accountable.

However, environmental director Xie Zhenhua is also a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee - China's inner circle of power - and there was no indication he would lose that post. Nor was there any sign that local party officials who tried to hide the disaster would be punished.

Xie was the first official to lose his job over the spill, which sent tons of cancer-causing benzene into the Songhua River in northeastern China. The river flows into Russia, and the spill is expected to cross the border in about 10 days.

[Last modified December 3, 2005, 01:23:08]