Man with half a body defies the odds by 'fathering a child'

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Affectionate: Kenney Easterday with Desiree, the seven-year-old who could be his daughter

He is also a fan of bowling, as seen in this clip from the American TV documentary

Active: Kenny uses his arms to prop himself up as he plays pool, in a still from a documentary on his life

Rare: Kenny's legs were amputated when he was six months old and a part of his shinbone was used to complete his spine

Together: Kenny with fianceé Nicky in a still from the American TV documentary

Defying the odds: Kenny Easterday is living a normal life beyond expectations in Virginia

Despite only having half a body, Kenny Easterday insists he can live the life of a normal man.

Now he appears to have proved it after claiming he has fathered a child.

Easterday, 35, was born with a rare condition called sacral agenesis, which prevented his spine from developing normally.
When he was just six months old, doctors amputated Kenny's legs and used part of his shinbone to complete his partially-formed spine.

Kenny is so small he can fit inside a suitcase but that hasn't stopped him playing pool, bowling, working - or having a love life with fianceé Nicky, 33.
In an American television documentary, he and Nicky revealed that they were together seven years ago - after which she became pregnant with her daughter, Desiree.

The pair are soon to found out if Desiree is actually Kenny's child. And they hope to start a new family to join Nicky's two children.
Kenny's greatest dream is to have a child, he revealed in the documentary.

'I want a child to carry my name, someone that can carry my legacy and be able to say 'Well that's my daddy',' he said.
Kenny was not expected to live past 21.

As a boy Kenny was offered prosthetic legs but he hated wearing them and preferred to use his hands or a skateboard to get around.

'My dad pretty much taught me how to walk on my hands,' said Kenny, from West Virginia, USA.
'I just told him to walk behind his mother, because she walks like a duck so just walk like her,' Kenny's father said in documentary made about his life.

As a child Kenny starred in the 1988 film, The Kid Brother, a dramatised version of his early life.

'If I'm handicapped it's because of these damn legs,' Kenny said in the film as he pushes over his prosthetic legs.

Terror train: Carriage spattered with blood and passengers flee in horror as drunken football hooligans attack rival fans

... The unfortunate victim is shoved head first into a seat.One of the hooligans squares up to a victim as terrified passengers look on

One of the innocent Leeds United fans is grabbed by the thugs

Another chaotic scene from the train as the hooligans rival fans who were returning from a stag trip to the races

One of the assailants prepares to throw a punch during the melee

The hooligans corner a victim during the horrifying attack, which lasted for 10 minutes

The gang maraud through a carriage, terrifying passengers, before fleeing the train

Horrified parents were forced to shield their children as they fled a train while a mob of football hooligans punched, kicked and stamped on a group of rival fans on board.

The yobs were savagely attacking rival football fans in what a judge called the worst case of mob violence he's seen have been jailed.

The drunken group of Sheffield Wednesday supporters were caught on CCTV attacking a peaceful group of Leeds United fans returning from a day at the races, causing pandemonium on the York to Manchester TransPennine Service.

Horrified passengers had to scramble over seats to safety.

One marauding yob even pushed aside a staff member who tried to block his path with a food trolley.

The conductor locked the train doors to contain the shocking violence, which lasted for 10 minutes, but the men used emergency levers to force them open and they escaped close to Garforth station, West Yorks.
But they were all soon caught - three were nicked after being identified on CCTV as known football troublemakers.

Jailing them for a total of more than 27 years at Leeds Crown Court on Wednesday, Judge Paul Hoffman said: 'You acted like a pack with a shared intention to beat up the other side. You collectively had a dislike, if not hatred, of Leeds United supporters and they were your intended victims.
'This is quite the worst and ugliest incident of mob violence on a train that I've personally ever had to deal with. I find it hard to imagine a more violent disorder on a train in terms of ferocity and persistence of violence.'

Prosecuting, Charlotte Worlsey said: 'The victims had been at a stag party at York racecourse and were in good humour when they had the misfortune to sit near the group's ringleader Shaun Jones and say they were Leeds United fans.


'His group had been drinking in York during the day and been ejected from some bars for their behaviour.

'After he told them about the "Leeds lads" the group followed him back to them and the defendant Dominic Mullan sparked the violence by punching one of them.'

All 12 men admitted violent disorder on July 11 last year. Jones, of Barnsley, who has previous convictions for violent offences, and Mullan, of Sheffield, were sentenced to four years in prison.
The other ten, all from Sheffield, were also jailed. Sam Atkinson, 21, was given a three-year term.

Lee Ardon, 23, Gavin Hodgson, 22, and Gavin Garton, 19, will serve two-and-a-half years. Stephen Hogan, 23, and Daniel Hewitt, 20, were jailed for two years.

Robert Wharam, Jack Culyer, Thomas Wilkinson, all 20, and 19-year-old Jordan Wasden, were handed 18-month terms.

Outside the court British Transport Police Det Sgt Granville Sellers said. 'This was an appalling unprovoked attack on a group of young men who were simply returning from an enjoyable day at the races.

'It was also a terrifying ordeal for the large number of passengers and staff who were travelling on this train and who genuinely feared for their safety.'

Russian rocket launches astronauts into space amid tightened security after Moscow suicide bombings

Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson (middle), cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov (bottom) and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko (top) seen just before lift off

The Russian Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft streaks across the sky on its way to the International Space Station

A Russian space ship blasted off from Kazakhstan this morning, transporting a Nasa astronaut and two cosmonauts to the International Space Station.

The crew, made up of American Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko, will spend six months in orbit around Earth.

The Soyuz craft rose from the Baikonur cosmodrome on schedule at 0404 (GMT), thundering through a clear blue sky at more than 8,000 miles per hour. It was launched amid tightened security following two suicide attacks on the Moscow metro.
Live pictures broadcast from the craft showed Mr Skvortsov smiling as a toy duck nicknamed 'Quack' dangled overhead. Once the craft entered orbit, the fluffy talisman began to float, demonstrating zero gravity.

'The vehicle is performing fine,' Mr Skvortsov said after a long communications disruption due to static.

The same launch pad was used by Yuri Gagarin when he made the first human trip into orbit in 1961

After docking with the multinational orbiter on Easter Sunday, they will join Russian Expedition 23 commander Oleg Kotov, Japanese flight engineer Soichi Noguchi and U.S. flight engineer Timothy Creamer.
One of the experiments on board the station will investigate why the absence of gravity suppresses the human immune system.

Since the Apollo moon programme, scientists have noted that zero-gravity can stop T cells from functioning - cells that our bodies need to fight disease.

They hope experiments with mice will reveal the root cause of this and pave the way for new immune boosting treatments on Earth.

Their missions ends in September, just before the U.S.'s last-ever shuttle flight launches from the Kennedy Space Center. From then on Russia will ferry crews to the station on single-use Soyuz spaceships.

A U.S. space shuttle is scheduled to head to the space station next week. Discovery is set to launch on Monday for a 13-day mission to add several tons of research equipment to the orbiting laboratory

A day in the life at Guantanamo: The eerie images of leg irons and 'life lessons' at America's darkest prison r

Unhindered: The detainees also appear free to exercise and talk together relatively undisturbed in the yard

Handcuffs line the wall of a tool shed in the camp

Big Brother: As if the fence was not enough, dozens of security cameras are also placed along the fence - along with watchtowers manned by armed guards

Dinnertime: The detainees are allowed to serve themselves from carts wheeled in to the detention centre

Anger: An inmate appears to let his temper get the best of him as the teacher walks him through the 'life lesson', where prisoners are taught skills such as resume writing

Heart of darkness: A guard watches over inmates as they attend the 'life lessons' at Guantanamo Bay in these images taken on March 29, 2010

Detention: One inmate, his hands free but his legs shackled to the floor, reads during the class as guards in protective clothing shackled another inmate to the ground behind him

Neighbours: One detainee pops his head in at the door of another's cell - blissfully blocking out the image of the leg shackles that had him chained to the floor just hours earlier

Barbed wire: The fence surrounding the exercise yard does not allow the impression of freedom to last

Despair: A gloved guard reaches for a detainee as he leans his head on the metal table

Transport shackles: After the classes, the detainees are frisked and chained to be taken back to their cells

They are scenes of tediousness rather than of terror or torture.

But the shackles and barbed wire imply the threat behind the boredom, as these never-before-seen images of life inside the prison at Guantanamo Bay show.

The inane round of exercise, packaged meals and 'life lessons' is now everything to these, the few remaining detainees - who have never been charged with any crimes - at Guantanamo.
Today fewer than 200 detainees are in custody at the U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba, compared with about 780 who have been jailed within its razor-wire fences at some point.

Some of those who remain have been cleared for release by Pentagon review panels, but have not been repatriated for fears they could be mistreated in their native countries.

Others are considered among the highest-value terrorism suspects, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the 9/11 attack.
In these images, the camp has an empty, leftover feel - as though the few who are left are simply waiting.

Despite the level of danger attached to them, they are allowed to associate freely in the exercise yard and pop their heads into each other's cells.

Their food is brought to them on a cart, carefully wrapped in plastic and with anything that could have been used as a weapon removed.

They attend 'life lessons', classes in which they are taught mundane skills such as writing a resume while chained to the cold metal floor by padded leg irons.

They are frisked as they are returned to their cells for another long night.
The pictures have all been approved by the U.S. military and seem surprisingly insipid - but the barbed wire, cameras, armed guards and shackles all belie the darker threat behind them.

Barack Obama has vowed to close Guantanamo Bay, an international blight on America's moral reputation.

The U.S. President called it a 'recruiting tool for terrorists' as critics demanded to know how Washington could reconcile torture and detention without trial with its message of peace and democracy.

But despite the obvious problems with leaving the camp open, Mr Obama has run into even bigger problems with trying to close it.
He has had trouble lining up help from other countries and even his own political party: Republicans and some Democrats have vehemently opposed moving terror suspects to U.S. soil, citing security fears.

The tribunal system for prosecuting terrorism suspects, which Mr Obama had put on hold for months, is expected to begin revving up this summer with modifications.

The next inmate scheduled for trial is Omar Khadr, a Canadian accused of killing an American solider with a grenade in Afghanistan when he was 15.

The Obama administration has said it wants to hold the detainees in an Illinois prison, but Congress first has to both approve the money to buy the prison and change current law barring detainees from entering the country for anything other than trial.

The president's self-imposed deadline to close Guantanamo passed in January. U.S. officials refuse to predict when the detention centre will get a new date for closure.

Meanwhile in Guantanamo, the chained prisoners exercise, talk, go to class - and wait.

Cardinals defend pope on church sex abuse scandal

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Pope Benedict XVI blows inside an amphora containing holy oil during a Chrism Mass, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 1, 2010. Benedict XVI urged priests to oppose violence as he led a ceremony dedicated to the priesthood Thursday, marking a Holy Week with his church buffeted by clergy sex abuse scandals. The Chrism Mass marks the st


Pope Benedict XVI washes the foot of an unidentified layman in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, Thursday, April 1, 2010. The feet-washing ceremony symbolizes humility and commemorates Jesus' last supper with his 12 apostles on the evening before his Good Friday crucifixion



Archbishop William J. Levada answers questions after being named by Pope Benedict XVI as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the Catholic Church, the highest post held by an American prelate, during a news conference in San Francisco, in this Friday, May 13, 2005 file photo. Levada said in an article posted on the Vatican's Web site that a lengthy trial for the Rev. Lawrence Murphy would have been "useless" because the priest was dying by the time his diocese initiated a canonical trial. Levada was critical of The New York Times, which first published details of the decision last week


Pope Benedict XVI arrives to celebrate the feet-washing rite in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, Thursday April 1, 2010. The feet-washing ceremony symbolizes humility and commemorates Jesus' last supper with his 12 apostles on the evening before his Good Friday crucifixion.



Pope Benedict XVI holds up the Holy Gospel as he celebrates a Chrism Mass, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 1, 2010. Benedict XVI urged priests to oppose violence as he led a ceremony dedicated to the priesthood Thursday, marking a Holy Week with his church buffeted by clergy sex abuse scandals. The Chrism Mass marks the start of the Easter celebrations.


Pope Benedict XVI washes the foot of an unidentified layman in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, Thursday, April 1, 2010. The feet-washing ceremony symbolizes humility and commemorates Jesus' last supper with his 12 apostles on the evening before his Good Friday crucifixion.


Pope Benedict XVI washes the foot of an unidentified layman in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, Thursday, April 1, 2010. The feet-washing ceremony symbolizes humility and commemorates Jesus' last supper with his 12 apostles on the evening before his Good Friday crucifixion.


Pope Benedict XVI holds his pastoral staff as he arrives to celebrate a Chrism Mass, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 1, 2010. Benedict XVI urged priests to oppose violence as he led a ceremony dedicated to the priesthood Thursday, marking a Holy Week with his church buffeted by clergy sex abuse scandals. The Chrism Mass marks the start of the Easter celebrations.







Cardinals across Europe used their Holy Thursday sermons to defend Pope Benedict XVI from accusations he played a role in covering up sex abuse scandals, and an increasingly angry Vatican sought to deflect any criticism in the Western media.

The relationship between the church and the media has become increasingly bitter as the scandal buffeting the 1 billion-member church has touched the pontiff himself. On Wednesday, the church singled out The New York Times for criticism in an unusually harsh attack.

Western news organizations, including The Associated Press, have reported extensively on the burgeoning scandal, and new details have emerged on an almost daily basis.

On Holy Thursday, Benedict first celebrated a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica dedicated to the union between the pope and the world's priests. In the late afternoon, he washed the feet of 12 priests in a ceremony symbolizing humility and commemorating Christ's Last Supper with his 12 apostles on the evening before his Good Friday crucifixion.

Although there were expectations by some that the pope would address the crisis, Benedict made no reference to the scandal at either ceremony.

Venice's Cardinal Angelo Scola expressed solidarity with Benedict in his Holy Thursday homily in the lagoon city, describing him as a victim of "deceitful accusations." He praised the pope as seeking to remove all "dirt" from the priesthood.

Warsaw Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz said the church should take notice of individual tragedies and treat sex abuse cases very seriously, but at the same time, he criticized the media for "targeting the whole church, targeting the pope, and to that we must say `no' in the name of truth and in the name of justice."

And Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, speaking of Benedict's long years as head of a Vatican office that investigates abuse, said the future pope "had a very clear line of not covering up but clearing up."

He had also reflected on the issue at a Wednesday evening service:

"I admit that I often feel a sense of injustice these days. Why is the church being excoriated? Isn't there also abuse elsewhere? ... And then I'm tempted to say: 'Yes, the media just don't like the church! Maybe there's even a conspiracy against the church?' But then I feel in my heart that no, that's not it."

The church on Wednesday presented its highest-level official response yet to one of the most explosive recent revelations regarding sex abuse — a story in the Times on the church's decision in the 1990s not to defrock a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting deaf boys.

It was the latest in a series of attacks on the press. Last week, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily newspaperdenounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" by the media to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

On Thursday, the newspaper carried a story on its front page on German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcoming efforts to stem sex abuse, headlining "German chancellor praises the Catholic church."

In the article posted Wednesday on the Vatican's Web site, Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote: "I am not proud of America's newspaper of record, The New York Times, as a paragon of fairness."

Levada, an American, said the newspaper wrongly used the case of the Rev. Lawrence Murphy to find fault in Benedict's handling of abuse cases.

A Times spokeswoman defended the articles and said no one has cast doubt on the reported facts.

"The allegations of abuse within the Catholic church are a serious subject, as the Vatican has acknowledged on many occasions," said Diane McNulty. "Any role the current pope may have played in responding to those allegations over the years is a significant aspect of this story."

The Vatican newspaper also carried a front-page commentary to mark the fifth anniversary of the death of Benedict's predecessor, the much beloved Pope John Paul II.

The article said John Paul wanted Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to work by his side from the early years of his papacy. John Paul brought the archbishop of Munich to Rome to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the powerful office that among other things investigates clerical sex abuse.

US hopes Kim trip leads to nuclear talks

Kim Jong-Il (R)

The United States voiced hope Wednesday that any visit by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to China would help lead to a resumption of six-nation talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear program.

South Korea said that the North Korean leader was highly likely to pay a visit to China, the closest economic and political partner of his reclusive regime.

"We hope it's an occasion, if he does in fact go there, that the Chinese can talk to him about the six-party (talks), the concerns that we have about their nuclear program and to urge that they return to talks," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

He said that he had no independent information that Kim was visiting China.

Kim agreed after an October visit to Pyongyang by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to re-enter the six-nation talks, from which it stormed out earlier in the year.

But North Korea has since insisted that the United States first negotiate with it on drafting a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which finished with only an armistice.

North Korea had agreed in 2005 and 2007 rounds of the six-nation talks to end its nuclear weapons drive in return for security guarantees and badly needed fuel assistance.

The talks involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

India kickoff the world biggest population census.

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India on Thursday kicked off what is says will be the world's biggest census that it hopes will help plug wastage in government welfare schemes, boost tax revenue and define consumers more clearly.

More than two million census workers will cover an estimated 1.2 billion people, defining them in demographic, socio-cultural and economic terms, including such parameters as mobile phone and Internet usage and banking access.

"Census 2011 is the largest exercise of its kind in human history. Our goal is to identify, count, record and issue identity cards to every Indian citizen," Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said ahead of the launch.

The census in the world's second-most populous country is held every 10 years. China, with a population of 1.3 billion, also has a census every 10 years.

With about two-thirds of the Indian population in hard-to-reach rural areas, the census is the main source of data for everyone from manufacturers of cars and marketers of toothpaste to government officials planning and implementing key programs.

Since the first census in 1872, it has also been key to drawing up constituencies for local and national elections.

With the government stepping up the rollout of massive programs for the poor such as rural jobs and health insurance, the data should also help plug leakages, which a former prime minister once estimated at about 85 percent of the total outlay.

The data will also help take the guesswork out of companies' investment and marketing plans in Asia's third largest economy.

"For a large country like ours, any detail that you can get on the population is always useful," said Ajit Ranade, chief economist at Aditya Birla Group. "We just don't know enough."

The government will also, for the first time, spend about 35 billion rupees ($786 million) on preparing a National Population Register (NPR), which will have photographs and fingerprints of all persons above the age of 15 years.

The NPR will pave the way for the ambitious Unique Identification scheme, which aims at issuing a smart card and UID number to every Indian citizen, enabling easier access to banking, welfare payments and boost tax collections.

India began a yearlong census of its billion-plus population in which it plans to photograph and fingerprint every citizen over the age of 15 to create a national database and then issue its first national identity cards.

About 2.5 million census-takers began traveling across more than 630,000 villages and 5,000 cities Thursday in an effort to visit every structure serving as a home, from tin shanties to skyscrapers, in what the government calls the world's largest administrative exercise.

For the first time, they will note the availability of toilets, drinking water and electricity, and the type of building materials to create a comprehensive picture of housing in India. They will also take fingerprints and photographs of each person and collect information on Internet, mobile phone and bank account usage.

The census-takers — mostly local government officials or schoolteachers — also plan to include millions of homeless people who sleep on railway platforms, under bridges and in parks.

So far, India has not had a system of national identity cards. The collection of fingerprints and photographs will be linked with another massive exercise launched last year to assign every Indian an identity number.

"It is for the first time in human history that an attempt is being made to identify, count, enumerate and record and eventually issue an identity card to 1.2 billion people," Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said.

The total cost will reach 57 billion rupees ($1.2 billion), the government said.

Most Indians welcome the ID cards, saying they will reduce the need for multiple identification papers and make it easier to receive government benefits and services.

Wealthy Indians can flash a combination of passports, driver's licenses and credit cards to establish who they are. But the poor — who often don't possess birth certificates — are forced to rely on electricity bills, ration cards, voting cards or letters from local officials, none of which is foolproof and often come at the cost of hefty bribes.

"It's a very good move," Raviranjan Sinha, a retiree in the eastern city of Patna, said of the plan for national identity cards and numbers. "It will bring some uniformity to the jumble of paperwork we are faced with."

"If this is true, there can be nothing better," said Kanhai Lal Gupta, a vegetable vendor in the northern city of Lucknow who makes less than $2 a day. "I hope we won't have to pay bribes to get this card."

A separate law making primary education compulsory came into effect Thursday, opening the door for impoverished children who have been denied school admission because of a lack of documents such as birth certificates.

At New Delhi's imposing pink sandstone presidential palace, President Pratibha Patil's household became the first to be registered Thursday in the first phase of the census, known as "house-listing."

While China, the world's most populous country, also counts its population, its census is carried out by various agencies, including Communist Party units, commune leaders and factory heads, unlike the single Registrar and Census Commission that carries out India's count.

India's population of nearly 1.2 billion is growing at more than 1.4 percent a year, while China, with about 1.3 billion people, is growing at a much lower 0.65 percent, according to the CIA World Fact Book.

India's census will face a special challenge from left-wing extremists active in 20 of the country's 28 states who have stepped up a campaign of violent attacks on government officials.

The census-takers plan to finish their work by February 2011. The information will be used for government policymaking, planning and budget allocations.

This will be India's 15th census held without interruption at the start of every decade. Census operations in India were begun in 1872 by British colonial rulers.

Japan charges New Zealand anti-whaling activist-World whaling body could collapse if deal fails: NZealand

Former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer`


Whalers cut open a 35-tonne Fin whale in June 2009

Japan has announced their charges against New Zealand anti-whaling protester Pete Bethune, local media reported Friday.

Japan is laying five charges against Bethune over his boarding of the Shonan Maru 2 in the Southern Ocean, Radio Newstalk ZB reported on Friday.

They accused him of trespass, possession of a weapon, injury to persons, damage to property and obstructing the passage of a vessel.

Bethune's lawyer Dan Harris said it is potentially a very serious situation.

Bethune was the skipper of the Sea Shepherd protest boat, Ady Gil, which sank following a collision with the Shonan Maru II in January.

He had planned to make a citizen's arrest of the ship's captain Hiroyuki Komiya in February, for what he said was the attempted murder of his six crew, and to present him with the bill for the trimaran.

The international body to control whaling worldwide could collapse if a deal cannot be reached to allow restricted commercial whaling, New Zealand's representative said Thursday.

Former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, who chairs an International Whaling Commission (IWC) group trying to negotiate a deal, said the IWC could fall apart.

"I think there is a big risk of that and I don't relish it," Palmer told reporters in Wellington.

"We cannot afford to see the end of the International Whaling Commission because if it comes to an end, there will be no international instrument for protecting the whales."

New Zealand is opposed to whaling but is supporting moves to allow restricted commercial whaling over the next 10 years if it means a big cut to the number of whales currently killed by Iceland, Norway and Japan.

Under an IWC moratorium introduced in 1986 commercial whaling was suspended, but Iceland and Norway ignore the edict while Japan uses a loophole allowing lethal scientific research.

Palmer said the three countries had been increasing the number of whales they hunted in recent years.

"At the moment the number of whales for which quotas have been issued are more than 3,000 -- that should be halved and indeed that may not be enough in some places, at some times, and for some stocks."

"We are talking about a big reduction in the total number of whales killed compared with now," he said.

"An emotional attachment to a moratorium that is not working is not in my view realistic."

Palmer is travelling to Washington next week for a meeting of 30 countries involved in the IWC group trying to hammer out a deal in time for the commission's annual meeting in Morocco in June.

There is an April 22 deadline for coming up with a submission to go forward to the annual meeting.

Palmer said he was not confident the opposing sides of the whaling argument could agree on a workable deal, but said it was important they were still talking.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully also described a deal as "a long shot" but said it was worth trying.

"All the alternatives to holding these discussions are truly awful," he said.

Australia has taken a harder line, saying it will take Japan to the International Court of Justice if it does not agree by November to stop hunting in Antarctic waters.

New Zealand said it there was a good chance court action would fail, leaving controls on hunting weaker than ever.

Russia's Medvedev visits North Caucasus after bombings

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev speaks during a meeting of local authorities at Russia's southern city of Makhachkala,

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited the North Caucasus on Thursday to reinforce efforts to crush the militants behind a spate of suicide bombings including an attack on the Moscow metro.

This week's bombings in Moscow and the North Caucasus region of Dagestan killed over 50 people between them, spreading fear of resurgent Islamist militancy throughout Russia's cities.

"We must deal sharp dagger blows to the terrorists, and destroy them and their lairs," Medvedev told a meeting of security chiefs and regional leaders in Dagestan's capital Makhachkala, in comments broadcast repeatedly on television.

"We have ripped the heads off the most infamous bandits but it appears that this was not enough. We will track them all down in due time and will punish them all, just as we did the previous ones."

He said the Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service (FSB) should be strengthened to deal with the challenge.

The comments -- a day after bombers killed 12 people in attacks on a Dagestan town -- marked a toughening of Medvedev's rhetoric on the attacks, though he gave few details.

There has been a surge in violence over the past year in the North Caucasus republics, where Russia has fought two wars against Chechen separatists since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

Last November a bomb claimed by Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov derailed the Moscow-St Petersburg Nevsky Express train, killing at least 26 people.

Umarov claimed responsibility on Wednesday for the metro bombings, saying they were revenge for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's policies in the mainly-Muslim North Caucasus. He threatened further attacks on Russian cities.

FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov said the latest attacks had been carried out by militant groups linked to the North Caucasus and that suspects had been detained, but gave no details.

KREMLIN CHALLENGE

Putin, who cemented his power in 1999 by launching a war to crush Chechen separatism, has said those behind the metro bombings must be scraped "from the bottom of the sewers."

Rights groups say Putin's policies in the North Caucasus have failed to deal with the root causes of a swiftly mutating Islamist insurgency.

"Contrary to the steely and self-righteous assurances of Russia's power structures, the country's strategy in the North Caucasus has been failing," said James Sherr, an analyst at Britain's Chatham House think tank, in a research note.

"Further attacks on symbols of state power could erode the prestige of those who rode to power in 1999 on the back of equally traumatic outrages and have staked everything on the restoration of Russia's integrity and strength."

Local leaders and residents say the insurgency is fueled by poverty, clan rivalries, rampant corruption and heavy-handed tactics by law enforcement agencies, as well as Islamism.

Medvedev's newly appointed envoy to the North Caucasus, Alexander Khloponin, said stability would be elusive "if we do not have the full support of our residents." As a deputy prime minister, Khloponin also reports to Putin.

Since he was sworn in as president in May 2008, Medvedev has singled out strife in the North Caucasus as Russia's most serious domestic problem and spoken about the need to fight poverty and corruption, though residents say little has changed on the ground.

Obama persists with hard line on Iran nuke issue - US to continue to ratchet up pressure on Iran

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President Barack Obama says the United States will continue to "ratchet up the pressure" on Iran to reveal its nuclear intentions to the rest of the world.

In an interview broadcast Friday on CBS's "The Early Show," Obama said "all the evidence" indicates that Tehran is trying to get a nuclear weapons capacity. With such a capability, Obama said that Iran could "destabilize" life in the Mideast and trigger an arms race in the region.

Obama said, "I think the idea here is to keep on turning up the pressure." He had said earlier this week he wanted new, stronger U.N. sanctions to be in place by late spring. The president also said he believes the country has become "further isolated" from the rest of the world since he took office.

US President Barack Obama said Friday the United States will continue to ratchet up the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program but would do so with unified international backing.

In an interview with CBS television's "Early Show," Obama said increasing Iran's isolation would have an effect on its economy.

"I have said before that we don't take any options off the table, and we're going to continue to ratchet up the pressure and examine how they respond," he said.

"But we're going to do so with a unified international community -- that puts us in a much stronger position."