Syria opposition talks offer suffers setbacks

DAMASCUS: An offer of talks by Syria's main opposition leader to President Bashar al-Assad suffered setbacks on Tuesday as state media said it was two years too late, and a principal opposing faction flatly rejected the idea.

Assad himself has yet to comment on the offer from Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib of the opposition National Coalition who says "the ball is now in the regime's court".

Khatib was following up on his surprise announcement last week that he was ready for talks with Assad's regime -- subject to conditions including the release of 160,000 detainees -- on ending the conflict that has ravaged Syria for nearly 23 months.

Khatib later elaborated, saying he was ready to meet Assad's deputy, Vice President Faruq al-Sharaa.

In the past the opposition has demanded Assad step down before talks can begin but analysts say Khatib's change in stance stems from a belief the population will be bled dry while the West fails to act.

Experts have also predicted Damascus would reject outright Khatib's overture, and hinting at this, the pro-regime Al-Watan newspaper said Khatib's offer came too late.

"Despite their importance, the statements of Sheikh Moaz al-Khatib are two years late. During that time, our finest young men have died, suffered wounds or been exiled, while we have lost our electricity and fuel infrastructure, alongside several military positions," the daily said.

"So the ball is not in the Syrian state's hands, as Khatib said."

The Syrian National Council, the main component of the Coalition, rejected the possibility of any talks, saying it was committed to ousting the regime, rejecting dialogue with it, and protecting the revolution.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi threw his weight behind Khatib's offer, however, and offered to play a role in any negotiations for a democratic transition.

The US strongly backed Khatib's dialogue call, with the State Department saying the regime "should sit down and talk," while stressing its position was unchanged on bringing to account those who have committed atrocities.

Assad last month announced he was ready for talks with the opposition but ruled out meeting groups such as the National Coalition, which backs rebels seeking to overthrow his regime.

Some regime opponents denounced Khatib's offer, while others welcomed it.

"To negotiate is difficult. They may be doomed and they may fail, but the attempt to stop the bloodbath with a proposal so humane may reap more fruits than merely waiting," prominent Kurdish activist Massoud Akko said on his Facebook page.

Hadi al-Abdallah, an activist in besieged Qusayr in the central province of Homs, told AFP he considered Khatib's proposal naive.

"We are not against the idea of negotiations per se. But we reject completely the idea of negotiating with this regime, which on previous occasions has taken advantage of opportunities for peace to gain time while it simply continued killing," he said.

Another activist Abu Nadim, speaking from Damascus province, said: "We trust Khatib as a person. But in politics, we here feel that good intentions are not enough.

"Everyone wants Khatib's wish to come true. But will it happen?"

President Shimon Peres of Israel, whose reported air strikes against Syrian targets last week triggered a threat of retaliation from Damascus, said it was time the world acted to end the Syrian "tragedy".

Fresh violence meanwhile erupted Tuesday in the northern city of Aleppo where rebels clashed with troops near an army barracks, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Army tanks also shelled the districts of Qadam and Assali on the outer edges of Damascus, the Britain-based watchdog said, adding 64 people were killed on Tuesday, including 20 civilians.

The UN says more than 60,000 people have been killed in violence across Syria since the outbreak of a revolt in March 2011 that morphed into an insurgency after the army launched a brutal crackdown on dissent.

-AFP/ac

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FCC holds first hearing on Sandy communications failures

A hardware store in the West Village offered power strips so that the thousands of people in the neighborhood who were without power after Hurricane Sandy could charge their cell phones and other gadgets.

(Credit:
Marguerite Reardon/CNET)

The Federal Communications Commission held the first of several planned field hearings on Tuesday in Hoboken, NJ to review what went wrong with the nation's communications network during Super Storm Sandy.

The storm, which was one of the worst to hit the East coast of the United States, knocked out about 25 percent of all cell sites and cable service in the 10-states affected by the storm. Of course, in certain regions where the storm hit the hardest, such as New York and New Jersey, these figures were much greater.

In Long Beach, NY on Long Island, every cell tower was knocked out by Sandy, Long Beach city manager, Jack Schirman told commissioners during the first panel discussion.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, who convened the hearings as a fact-finding mission to help figure out what went wrong and how to improve it for future disasters, said that the industry must do better to ensure that wireless and Internet service remain operational during such disasters, especially as people rely on these services more and more.

"The inability to communicate with family and emergency personnel during a disaster is simply unacceptable," Genachowski said.

He acknowledged that the challenges exposed during Sandy are complex. Specifically, he pointed to the fact that many of the communications failures were due to "the interrelation of our electric grid and our communications networks."

"The fact is we rely on our electric grid to power individual devices, to power antenna towers and other elements of fixed and mobile communications networks, and to power the central offices, switches and other sophisticated equipment that connect it all together," he said.

Indeed, millions were without power from Maine to the Carolinas, with areas such as New York and New Jersey taking the brunt. Some people were without power for more than a week. And in many of those areas, Internet and wireless service were not operational without power.

The Edison Electric Institute's Ed Comer testified at the hearing and acknowledged the interdependence between the communications network and the nation's power grid. His organization represents shareholder-owned electric companies and its members consist of 70 percent of the U.S. electric power industry.

But he said that the issue is not a simple one to solve. He said there needs to be more and better coordination at the local and state level. He also said that consumer's expectations for keeping the power up and running and for restoring it in a timely fashion have increased over the recent past as more consumers rely on devices and services that require an always on power source.

"After Hurricane Katrina (in 2005), our companies in the South said customers lost patience after five days without power," he said. "Now customers in that region who are affected by storms, expect power restoration within three days."

Genachowski also emphasized the need for the communications industry to prepare better for such emergencies and account for power outages.

"Last month, the FCC issued a detailed report examining the failures of 911 communications after the derecho, which caused massive power outages across the mid-Atlantic this past summer," he said. "A key take-away from that report was that many of the problems encountered at that time could have been avoided if known best practices had been followed."

It will be interesting to see what the FCC will recommend once it has completed its field hearings.

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Gay marriage gets OK from British lawmakers

LONDON British lawmakers on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage championed by Prime Minister David Cameron, despite strong opposition from within his Conservative Party.

In a first House of Commons vote, lawmakers voted 400 to 175 in support of the legislation. There was majority support from the left-leaning Labour Party and Liberal Democrats party, but around half of the Conservative lawmakers rejected the proposals or abstained.

The bill will have to go through more detailed parliamentary debates and a vote in the House of Lords, where a vote in favor is likely given the strong support Tuesday. If it becomes law, the proposed bill would enable same-sex couples to get married in both civil and religious ceremonies, provided that the religious institution consents.

The bill would also allow couples who had previously entered into civil partnerships to convert their relationship into a marriage.

Earlier, Cameron - who did not attend a Parliament debate ahead of the vote - said passing the bill is "an important step forward" for Britain.

"I am a strong believer in marriage. It helps people commit to each other and I think it is right that gay people should be able to get married too," he said. "This is, yes, about equality. But it is also about making our society stronger."

Officials have stressed that all religious organizations can decide for themselves if they want to "opt in" to holding gay weddings. However, the Church of England, the country's official faith, is barred from performing such ceremonies.

That provision aims to ensure that the Church, which opposes gay marriage, is protected from legal claims that as the official state religion it must marry anyone who requests it.

Currently same-sex couples only have the option of a civil partnership, which offers the same legal rights and protections on issues such as inheritance, pensions, and child maintenance.

Supporters say that gay relationships should be treated exactly the same way as heterosexual ones, but critics worry that the proposals would change long-standing views about the meaning of marriage. Some Conservatives also fear the proposals would cost the party a significant number of votes in the next election.

"Marriage is the union between a man and a woman, has been historically, remains so. It is Alice in Wonderland territory, Orwellian almost, for any government of any political persuasion to seek to come along and try to re-write the lexicon," Conservative lawmaker Roger Gale said.

If passed, the bill's provisions would come into effect in 2015. They apply only to England and Wales - there are no plans for similar legislation in Northern Ireland. Scotland is considering introducing a similar bill.

CBS Radio's Vicki Barker reports from London that Tony and Barry Drewett-Barlow have been in a civil partnership for seven years. They are devout Christians who want a Christian wedding.

"For Barry and I it's about being able to stand up in front of the altar in our local church and say our vows," Tony said, "not only to each other and in law, but also in the eyes of God -- and that's a really important step."

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Jodi Arias Tried Wicca, Buddhism With Boyfriends

Accused murderer Jodi Arias testified over the last two days about a flurry of boyfriends and how she followed them into exploring a string of religions including witchcraft, Buddhism, Hinduism and eventually Mormonism.

Arias, 32, has yet to tell the jury about meeting Travis Alexander, the ex-boyfriend who baptized her into the Mormon religion and who she is charged with killling in a jealous rage in 2008. She is now on trial in Arizona for his murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Her odyssey through boyfriends and the spiritual world included a five year period from age 18 through age 22 when Arias said she became very interested in fundamentalist Christianity, Wicca, Buddhism, and Hinduism, all of which she explored as she dated men who practiced those beliefs.

Eventually Arias became interested in Mormonism through Alexander, and converted to Mormonism when she began a tumultuous sexual relationship with him in 2006.

Arias took the stand for the second time today to explain to the jury how she came to kill Alexander in what she claims was self defense. Her story started with other boyfriends.

"When I first met (Matt McCartney) I was a little bit leery about things he was into. I saw some books on witchcraft and went, 'oh', but he explained to me that he was just seeking," Arias said today. "He was looking at other religions, he was studying Wicca, and I didn't practice it myself, but he had practiced it and had moved onto studying eastern mysticism and Buddhism."

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Victim's Ex Testifies Watch Video

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Former Boyfriend Takes Stand Watch Video

"Our relationship took a lot of spiritual turns," she said.

Arias said that religion played a major role in her and McCartney's relationship, which lasted nearly two years and involved living together in Oregon.

"We sort of explored together, taking meditation seminars, new age type seminars, which sort of had roots in Hinduism or Buddhism, and were kind of like a modern version of transcendentalism," she said. "We would drive to Portland or the Bay Area often for them."

See Jodi Arias Trial Videos

Arias said she grew up as a non-denominational Christian. During her testimony on Monday Arias said that in high school, an acquaintance had told her that the second coming of Jesus Christ would be in 1997, and she took to warning close friends about it.

"It's kind of silly, but there was this older man who used to come into my parents' restaurant, and he had a small pocket version of the New Testament that he always carried. He was always quoting Bible stories to me, and this one time he told me he had done the math in the Bible and determined that he knew that the second coming was going to occur in September of 1997," Arias said.

Arias took the man's advice to heart and called her on-again, off-again boyfriend of the time to tell him the news.

"I was really naive and kind of believed him. It seemed important, so I thought Bobby (Juarez) should know about it. He wasn't religious, but I thought it was important that he at least hear that for himself," she said.

Through a string of boyfriends in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Arias continued to identify as a Christian who was into spirituality. When she met Alexander in 2006, she immediately became interested in Mormonism. She quickly converted and Alexander, a Mormon elder, baptized her into her new religion.

The two also maintained a torrid sexual affair, which is prohibited for unmarried people in the Mormon religion.

Other witnesses who have been called to the stand have noted her commitment to Mormonism, including Ryan Burns, a Mormon she began seeing after breaking up with Alexander. She also visited Burns the day after killing Alexander.

"Part of our conversations with each other were about her religious views, and my religious views," Burns testified. "She would often tell me about how she felt about her religious beliefs, the Book of Mormon. She was a convert, by Travis... She mentioned reading the scriptures."

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Iran's Ahmadinejad kissed and scolded in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was both kissed and scolded on Tuesday when he began the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Tehran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The trip was meant to underline a thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state, President Mohamed Mursi, last June. But it also highlighted deep theological and geopolitical differences.

Mursi, a member of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, kissed Ahmadinejad after he landed at Cairo airport and gave him a red carpet reception with military honors. Ahmadinejad beamed as he shook hands with waiting dignitaries.

But the Shi'ite Iranian leader received a stiff rebuke when he met Egypt's leading Sunni Muslim scholar later at Cairo's historic al-Azhar mosque and university.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old seat of religious learning, urged Iran to refrain from interfering in Gulf Arab states, to recognize Bahrain as a "sisterly Arab nation" and rejected the extension of Shi'ite Muslim influence in Sunni countries, a statement from al-Azhar said.

Visiting Cairo to attend an Islamic summit that begins on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told a news conference he hoped his trip would be "a new starting point in relations between us".

However, a senior cleric from the Egyptian seminary, Hassan al-Shafai, who appeared alongside him, said the meeting had degenerated into an exchange of theological differences.

"There ensued some misunderstandings on certain issues that could have an effect on the cultural, political and social climate of both countries," Shafai said.

"The issues were such that the grand sheikh saw that the meeting ... did not serve the desired purpose."

The visit would have been unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed autocrat who preserved Egypt's peace treaty with Israel during his 30 years in power and deepened ties between Cairo and the West.

"The political geography of the region will change if Iran and Egypt take a unified position on the Palestinian question," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based TV station, on the eve of his trip.

He said he wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory which neighbors Egypt to the east and is run by the Islamist movement Hamas. "If they allow it, I would go to Gaza to visit the people," Ahmadinejad said.

Analysts doubt that the historic changes that brought Mursi to power will result in a full restoration of diplomatic ties between states whose relations were broken off after the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

OBSTACLES TO FULL TIES

At the airport the two leaders discussed ways of improving relations and resolving the Syrian crisis "without resorting to military intervention", Egyptian state media reported.

Egypt is concerned by Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush an uprising inspired by the revolt that swept Mubarak from power two years ago. Egypt's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population is broadly supportive of the uprising against Assad's Alawite-led administration.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr sought to reassure Gulf Arab allies - that are supporting Cairo's battered state finances and are deeply suspicious of Iran - that Egypt would not jeopardize their security.

"The security of the Gulf states is the security of Egypt," he said in remarks reported by the official MENA news agency.

Mursi wants to preserve ties with the United States, the source of $1.3 billion in aid each year to the influential Egyptian military.

"The restoration of full relations with Iran in this period is difficult, despite the warmth in ties ... because of many problems including the Syrian crisis and Cairo's links with the Gulf states, Israel and the United States," said one former Egyptian diplomat.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he was optimistic that ties could grow closer.

"We are gradually improving. We have to be a little bit patient. I'm very hopeful about the expansion of the bilateral relationship," he told Reuters. Asked where he saw room for closer ties, he said: "Trade and economics."

Egypt and Iran have taken opposite courses since the late 1970s. Egypt, under Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat, concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and became a close ally of the United States and Europe. Iran from 1979 turned into a center of opposition to Western influence in the Middle East.

Symbolically, Iran named a street in Tehran after the Islamist who led the 1981 assassination of Sadat.

Egypt gave asylum and a state funeral to Iran's exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the 1979 Iranian revolution. He is buried in a mosque beside Cairo's mediaeval Citadel alongside his ex-brother-in-law, Egypt's last king, Farouk.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir, Marwa Awad and Alexander Diadosz; Writing by Paul Taylor and Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Roche and Robin Pomeroy)

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Israeli, Palestinian textbooks give kids slanted view: study

JERUSALEM: Israelis and Palestinians rarely demonise each other in their schoolbooks but each side's texts offer children a one-sided view of their conflict, says a joint study released on Monday.

"Dehumanising and demonising characterisations of the other are rare in both Israeli and Palestinian books," according to the study funded by the US State Department and carried out by Palestinian, Israeli and US academics.

"Both Israeli and Palestinian books present exclusive unilateral national narratives," wrote the authors, from Bethlehem, Tel Aviv and Yale universities.

"Historical events are selectively presented to reinforce each national narrative," said the study, which analysed more than 3,000 textbooks approved in 2011 by the sides' education ministries as well as those distributed in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community which has its own education system.

On the loaded issue of maps, only four per cent of Palestinian schoolbooks and 13 per cent of the Israeli texts show borders and captions recognising the other.

The Israeli-occupied West Bank is often referred by its biblical name of Judaea and Samaria, particularly in the ultra-Orthodox schools.

"The lack and absence of information about the other serve to delegitimise the presence of the other," says the study.

It noted that negative portrayal of the adversary is "more pronounced in the Israeli ultra-Orthodox and Palestinian books than in the Israeli state books," which it says have more self-critical content.

"There is much to do in general in the educational system and in particular with school textbooks, if the parties in conflict decide to embark on the path of peace," the study concludes.

The Palestinian Authority and Israel often accuse one another of teaching violence and hatred to their schoolchildren.

An Israeli education ministry statement dismissed the new study as "biased, unprofessional and profoundly unobjective."

"The education ministry chose not to cooperate with those elements who are interested in maliciously slandering the Israeli educational system and the state of Israel," it added.

"The attempt to create a parallel between the Israeli and Palestinian educational systems is without any foundation whatsoever and has no basis in reality," the ministry said.

Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad, in contrast, welcomed the report, saying it "confirms that Palestinian textbooks do not contain any form of blatant incitement, which is based on contempt towards the 'other'."

He said that the Palestinian ministry of education cooperated in the research and that he had instructed it "to study the report thoroughly and to use its conclusions... to develop school curriculums," based on "principles of coexistence, tolerance, justice, and human dignity."

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the study was an independent analysis carried out by an NGO called A Different Future in partnership with the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land.

"Our point in funding it was to enable this Council of Religious Institutions to take what it got from the report, use it in a constructive manner to continue to pursue its objectives... for peace and religious tolerance in the curriculum," Nuland told reporters.

"We're not taking a position one way or another on what the study found."

- AFP/jc

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Double asteroid trouble may have wiped out dinosaurs

This artist's image of the Chicxulub impact might have to be revised.

(Credit:

Donald E. Davis)

When asteroids attack, dinosaurs lose. Though there are still competing theories as to why we lost awesome animals like Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptors, many scientists look to a long-ago asteroid impact to explain the wipeout.

A study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters adds a new wrinkle to the asteroid assumption by suggesting that the dinos may have had to contend with not one, but two deadly balls of flying space rock. Titled "Morphology and population of binary asteroid impact craters," the study was lead by Katarina Miljkovic from the Institute of Earth Physics in Paris.

If you look out into space around Earth, you'll find that about 15 percent of asteroids are binary, meaning they're traveling in pairs. However, only 2 to 4 percent of craters on Earth have been labeled as binary impacts. Miljkovic believes this number is under-reported and that many binary asteroids have been overlooked because their craters overlap.

The study identifies certain shapes that may indicate a double crash site. These range from craters that are obviously peanut-shaped to ones that look like tear drops.

Looking for abnormalities like elongated or asymmetrical impact craters may lead scientists to discovering more binary impacts throughout history than were previously noted. This brings us to the dinosaur issue. The crater of the asteroid many scientists believe took out the dinosaurs fits this description. It is located near Chicxulub in Mexico.

"The Chicxulub crater shows some important asymmetries. It is worth considering that it was formed by a binary asteroid," Miljkovic told New Scientist.

Binary asteroids certainly spelled trouble for dinosaurs, but what does it mean for us today? Scientists are already working on ways to divert dangerous asteroids from Earth. They just might have their hands twice as full if a binary asteroid comes calling. Maybe it's time to start thinking about dealing with twins.

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Crashed bus owner failed one-third of safety inspections

YUCAIPA, Calif. The company linked to a tour bus involved in a deadly crash in Southern California failed more than a third of federal vehicle safety inspections in the last two years.

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Calif. tour bus crash kills at least 8

17 Photos

Tour bus crashes in Calif.

U.S. government records show that buses operated by the firm Scapadas Magicas of National City, Calif., flunked 36 percent of random inspections on their vehicles — in some cases for brake and tire problems.

That's higher than the national average for similar companies — a 21 percent failure rate.

Records also show the company had no crashes in the past two years.

The California company had an overall "satisfactory" rating from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, but records show three-quarters of similar companies had better safety records.

Lettering on the 1996 bus indicates it was operated by Scapadas Magicas.

At least eight people were killed in Sunday night's crash. More than three dozen people were injured, and at least 17 were still hospitalized, including at least five in critical condition. One is a girl.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to the scene.

CBS Station KCBS reports that the bus, carrying dozens of men, women and children from Tijuana, was on its way back to Mexico Sunday evening after a day in Big Bear when the driver lost control just after 6:30 p.m., about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

Investigators say the bus flipped and landed on a pickup truck towing a trailer. A black Saturn was also rear-ended.

The crash left State Route 38 littered with body parts and debris, and the bus sideways across both lanes with its windows blown out, front end crushed and part of the roof peeled back like a tin can.

One person in the pickup truck was injured. The fate of the passengers in the car was not clear, but at least two people were in the Saturn, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Mario Lopez.

Investigators will determine if mechanical failure or driver error was to blame. The bus driver, who survived but was injured, told investigators the vehicle had brake problems.

"It appears speed was a factor in this collision," said Lopez.

Crews worked through the night to recover the dead, but one body remained aboard the bus early Monday, said Rocky Shaw, a San Bernardino County coroner's investigator.

Officials hadn't been able to retrieve the body because the front end of the bus was dangling over the edge of the roadside.

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Arias' Underwear, T-Shirt Shown at Murder Trial

A woman's T-shirt emblazoned with the possessive "Travis Alexander's" and a pair of pink panties with the word "Travis'" on the front hint at the controlling nature and abusive attitude that existed between Alexander and Jodi Arias in the months before she killed him, defense attorneys said today.

Defense attorneys also questioned porn on Travis Alexander's computer during today's testimony.

Arias is accused of murder for Alexander's death, but her defense attorneys claim she killed him in self defense because he was an abusive and controlling "sexual deviant." The pair dated for a year before breaking up, but continued to have a sexual relationship for another year until Alexander's death.

The photo of the T-shirt and panties were found on Arias' camera in July 2008, more than a month after Arias killed Alexander on June 4.

"The photo of 'Travis Alexander's' and 'Travis', both written in the possessive form, will be relied on by our experts discussing the controlling nature of the relationship (between Alexander and Arias), the possessive nature of the relationship, and what that does to a woman," defense attorney Jennifer Willmott said today after the prosecution objected to the photos.

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Former Boyfriend Takes Stand Watch Video

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Defense's First Day of Witnesses Watch Video

Prosecutor Juan Martinez asked Dworkin whether he knew when the words were put on the shirt and panties. When Dworkin said he could not determine when they were created, Martinez suggested that could have been done after Alexander was killed.

The defense also showed items from Alexander's internet search history from the early morning hours before he was killed, showing that he watched YouTube videos of scantily-clad women dancing to pop music and visited a proxy server, which covers one's IP address while surfing the internet. The defense will try to prove that Alexander was obsessed with looking at sexual content on his computer.

"I recall there was some pornography on the computer," Lonnie Dworkin, the computer forensic analyst testifying for the defense, told the court. "I don't recall specifically if there were women's breasts or other content."

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Dworkin combed the hard drives and memory cards of computers and cameras owned by Arias and Alexander. He found images including the T-shirt and underwear, pictures of Arias hugging friends and a dog, and pictures of a penis that Alexander sent Arias on the internet, according to his testimony.

The defense has spent the past week presenting evidence that Alexander kept up appearances of being a devout Mormon and a virgin in his social life, but had an erotic sex life with Arias that included sending her a lewd picture of himself, phone sex, anal sex, oral sex, and taking nude photos of one another in sexual positions.

She is expected to testify before the defense finishes presenting its case.

Arias could face the death penalty if convicted of murder, which prosecutors say was premeditated and extremely cruel in that she stabbed him 27 times, slashed his throat, and shot him twice in the head. They have also argued that she lied to investigators and friends about killing Alexander until she was cornered with a mountain of evidence proving that she did. She then said she killed him in self-defense, they argue.

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North Korea nuclear test would face "firm" U.N. action: South Korea

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is united on North Korea's nuclear arms program and will undoubtedly approve tough measures against Pyongyang if it carries out a new atomic test as expected, South Korean U.N. Ambassador Kim Sook said on Monday.

"The North Korean nuclear test seems to be imminent," Kim, who is president of the Security Council this month, told reporters. "Obviously there are very busy activities going on at the (North Korean) nuclear test site, and everybody's watching."

"Everybody is unified and they are firm and resolute," he said. "I would expect very firm and strong measures to be taken ... once they go ahead with such provocation."

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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