US will back new Iran sanctions

The US wants a new resolution on Iran agreed 'with some dispatch'

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said there is a "very strong case" for a third round of sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme.

She spoke as the UN nuclear agency said it could offer no "credible assurances" that Iran was not building a bomb.

UN Security Council members the US, UK, China, France and Russia meet on Monday in Washington to mull their next step.

But Iran's top nuclear negotiator said the UN report backed Tehran's claim its nuclear programme was peaceful.

Tehran refuses to stop enriching uranium, insisting its work is aimed purely at generating electricity.

Travel bans

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report did praise Iran for granting its inspectors access to previously off-limits sites, but said it remained evasive on key issues.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes

The nuclear watchdog struck a deal last August with Iran on a timetable to resolve questions over aspects of its past nuclear activities.

But Friday's report said Tehran had evaded a proper response to claims it had made secret efforts to "weaponise" nuclear material.

It had also ducked questions about alleged high explosives testing and design work on a missile warhead, the IAEA found, noting: "This is a matter of serious concern."

Iran was also still openly enriching uranium in defiance of UN resolutions and testing advanced centrifuges to speed up the process, said the inspectors.

The US secretary of state said: "This report demonstrates that whatever the Iranians may be doing to try to clean up some elements of the past, it is inadequate given their current activities.

"What we all have to worry about... is the future in which Iran could start to perfect the technologies that could lead to a nuclear weapon."

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili told reporters: "This report showed that our activities are peaceful."

But BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the IAEA findings are definitely not a clean bill of health.

On Thursday, Britain and France introduced a UN Security Council resolution - a draft of which was approved last month - with support from the US, Russia, China and Germany.

It seeks to expand the number of Iranian companies targeted by sanctions and impose travel bans on certain Iranian officials.

A declassified US intelligence report last December judged that the Iranians had put a nuclear weapons program on hold in 2003.

But the US, Israel and others contend Iran's continued advances in the crucial centrifuge work will eventually give it a capability to build a bomb.

US missile hits 'toxic satellite'

The Pentagon used a missile to shoot down the satellite (file pic)

The US has successfully struck a disabled spy satellite with a missile fired from a warship in waters west of Hawaii, military officials say.

Military operatives had only a 10-second window to hit the satellite - USA 193 - which lost control shortly after it was launched in December 2006.

Officials said they were worried fuel on board could pose a threat to humans.

But Russia suspects the operation was a cover to test anti-satellite technology under the US missile defence programme.

The US denies the operation was a response to an anti-satellite test carried out by China last year, which prompted fears of a space arms race.

Precision needed

This operation was hugely ambitious - like trying to fire a missile through the eye of a needle.

The operation went ahead hours after the space shuttle Atlantis landed, removing it as a safety issue for the military.

BROKEN SATELLITE Owner: National Reconnaissance Office Mission: Classified Launched: 14 Dec 2006 Weight: 2,300 kg (5,000lbs) 1,134kg (2,500lbs) could survive re-entry Carrying hydrazine thruster fuel

The satellite - believed by some commentators to be a radar imaging reconnaissance satellite - was passing about 130 miles (210km) over the Pacific.

Earlier the military said it would use an SM-3 missile fired from the cruiser USS Lake Erie, which is posted on the western side of Hawaii along with the destroyers USS Decatur and USS Russell.

But it is not yet known how successful the operation was - the missile needs to pierce the bus-sized satellite's fuel tank, containing more than 450kg (1,000lbs) of toxic hydrazine, which would otherwise be expected to survive re-entry.

The Pentagon said confirmation that the fuel tank has been hit should be available within 24 hours.

US officials said without an attempt to destroy the fuel tank, and with the satellite's thermal control system gone, the fuel would now be frozen solid, allowing the tank to resist the heat of re-entry.

If the tank were to land intact, it could leak toxic gas over a wide area - harming or kill humans if inhaled, officials had warned.

Debris

Officials expect that over 50% of the debris will fall to Earth within the first 15 hours after the strike - or within its first two revolutions of Earth.

USA 193 lost control a few hours after launch on a Delta II rocket

Left to its own devices, about half of the spacecraft would have been expected to survive the blazing descent through the atmosphere, scattering debris in a defined "corridor" which runs across the Earth's surface.

Professor Richard Crowther, a space debris expert with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), said that if struck with the missile, about 25% of USA 193 is likely to survive the fall to Earth.

"The smaller the debris is the more likely you are to get burn-through. So if you fragment something before re-entry, less mass will survive to hit the Earth," he told BBC News.

Russian suspicion

But Russia's defence ministry has effectively branded the US operation a cover for testing an anti-satellite weapon.

The Russian defence ministry argued that various countries' spacecraft had crashed to Earth in the past, with many using toxic fuel on board, but that this had never before merited "extraordinary measures".

Last year, China carried out a test using a ground-based ballistic missile to destroy a satellite in space, prompting international alarm and fears of a space arms race.

On Tuesday, a US State Department spokesman stressed that the action was meant to protect people from the hazardous fuel and was not a weapons test.

The US government has also denied claims that the main aim of the operation was to destroy secret components on USA 193.

Officials say classified parts would be burned up in the atmosphere and, in any case, that would not be a reason for shooting down the satellite.

SATELLITE DESTRUCTION PLAN 1 SM-3 missile launched from a US Navy cruiser in Pacific Ocean 2 The three-stage missile heads for collision location, where the relative "closing" speed will be 10km/s (22,000mph) 3 Satellite reaches desired altitude of 240km (130 nautical miles), close to edge of atmosphere 4 Missile makes contact and breaks fuel tank, freeing hydrazine into space 5 Debris scattered over hundreds of kilometres

Bush salutes Kosovo independence

Kosovo's declaration met protests in Belgrade and in parts of Kosovo

US President George W Bush has said history will prove the independence of Kosovo to be justified.

In a speech in Tanzania, Mr Bush said the US would soon establish full diplomatic relations with Kosovo.

Serbia earlier withdrew its envoy to Washington in protest. It says Kosovo's declaration of independence on Sunday violates international law.

The UN Security Council is divided over how to respond to Kosovo's move, and it has failed to agree any action.

Russia and China supported Serbian President Boris Tadic when he made an impassioned appeal to the Council at Tuesday's meeting.

But Britain's representative said that with no prospect of agreement between Belgrade and Pristina the only way forward was supervised independence for Kosovo.

Britain, France, Germany and Italy have all recognised the new state but others have not.

'Peace'

In his speech, Mr Bush said there was "a disagreement but we believe as many other nations do that history will prove this to be the correct move".

The president, who was speaking during a tour of Africa, said the US supported Kosovo's independence because "we believe it will bring peace".

Earlier, in a letter to Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu, Mr Bush offered friendship to Kosovo, and said he supported "your embrace of multi-ethnicity as a principle of good governance".

On Monday, the Serbian parliament passed a resolution condemning Kosovo's declaration of independence.

KOSOVO PROFILE Population about two million Majority ethnic Albanian; 10% Serb Under UN control since Nato drove out Serb forces in 1999 2,000-strong EU staff to take over from UN after independence Nato to stay to provide security

The resolution also formally annulled the acts of the government in Pristina, saying Belgrade's sovereignty over Kosovo was guaranteed by the UN and international law.

In a separate move, Serbia recalled its ambassadors to the US, France and Turkey because those countries had recognised Kosovo's independence.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has threatened to withdraw envoys from other countries which backed the territory's secession.

At a meeting in Brussels, the European Union set aside differences over the recognition of Kosovo's independence, by stressing that the breakaway Serbian province was not a precedent for separatists elsewhere.

All 27 EU foreign ministers agreed to leave recognition up to each member state.

Spain and several other member states have withheld recognition because of concerns about separatist movements within their own borders.

Protest rallies

Serbia's interior ministry has filed criminal charges against Kosovo Albanian leaders instrumental in proclaiming independence, accusing them of proclaiming a "false state" on Serbian territory.

In Belgrade, about 10,000 students marched in protest at the independence declaration, and Serb enclaves inside Kosovo also saw big anti-independence rallies.

In Kosovo's divided city of Mitrovica, three cars were damaged in Tuesday's grenade attack near the office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The incident was the latest in a string of hand-grenade attacks on property of international missions in Kosovo and government offices.

Serbian security forces were driven out of Kosovo in 1999 after a Nato bombing campaign aimed at halting the violent repression of ethnic Albanian separatists.

The province has been under UN administration and Nato protection since then.