Evening Edition

Despite diplomats’ red faces, officials were quick to criticise the release of the confidential missives, most of which date from 2007 to February this year, and to stress that the leaks would not harm relations.

Highlights include a call by Saudi King Abdullah for the US to “cut off the head” of the Iranian snake over its nuclear programme and leaked memos about a Chinese government bid to hack into Google.

The leaked memos describe a Chinese government bid to hack into Google, plans to reunite the Korean peninsula after the North’s eventual collapse, and quote Saudi Arabia’s king as saying the United States should bomb Iran to halt its nuclear drive, telling it to “cut off the head of the snake.”

The confidential cables, most of which date from 2007 to last February, also reveal how the State Department has ordered diplomats to spy on foreign officials and even to obtain their credit card and frequent flier numbers.

“A richer tapestry of efforts is needed,” UN climate chief Christiana Figueres warned, as she spelt out the tasks facing the 12-day conference in the Mexican resort city of Cancun.

“A tapestry of holes will not work — and the holes can only be filled in through compromise.”

Mexican police and troops, supported by navy patrol boats, threw a cordon around the Moon Palace hotel, a beachfront complex near the eastern resort city of Cancun.

Opening ceremonies were to include an address by President Felipe Calderon, who has declared war on Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.

In late London deals, the euro was at 1.3090 dollars, after hitting 1.3064 dollars earlier for its lowest point since September 21. On Friday, the European single currency bought 1.3240 dollars.

The European Union and International Monetary Fund on Sunday agreed to an 85-billion-euro (113-billion-dollar) deal for Ireland but the initial boost the announcement gave the euro faded on worries Spain and Portugal could be next in line.

On the eve of a face-to-face meeting with his Republican adversaries, Obama said the freeze — which must be approved by Congress — would save more than five billion dollars in the rest of the 2011 fiscal year and in 2012.

Kicking off what he termed a “serious and long-overdue” debate on the deficit, Obama insisted the United States must make a “broad sacrifice” to correct its long-term fiscal course.

The election aims to end a decade of instability in the west African country, the world’s top cocoa producer, but tension reigned as the votes were counted with a nighttime curfew in force.

The electoral commission released partial overseas results late Monday and was to begin announcing results for the millions of voters in Ivory Coast itself on Tuesday morning.

In the grip of a cholera epidemic that has claimed 1,650 lives, Haitians are choosing a successor to President Rene Preval, searching for someone to lead a nation shattered by a January earthquake that killed 250,000 people.

Fears that fraud could mar the elections were realized even before polls closed at 2100 GMT — with a majority of presidential contenders denouncing a “conspiracy” between Preval’s government and the electoral commission.

The call by the private campaign group came just days before the executive committee of world football’s governing body was due to designate the two host nations under the eyes of a brace of world leaders and stars.

“The decision to award football’s World Cup in 2018 and 2022, scheduled for December 2, 2010, must be postponed until full light is shed on the allegations published in the press,” Transparency International Switzerland said in a statement.

“We found her skeleton,” says Alvik, a marine archaeologist and curator with Finland’s National Board of Antiquities.

“She never got out. Think of the panic she felt as the cabin filled with icy water — it was November, after all.”

The more than 250,000 documents, given to five media groups by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, provide candid and at times critical views of foreign leaders as well as sensitive information on terrorism and nuclear proliferation filed by U.S. diplomats, according to The New York Times.

The White House condemned the release by WikiLeaks and said the disclosures may endanger U.S. informants abroad. WikiLeaks said its website was under attack and none of the underlying cables was visible there Sunday night, though some were posted by news organizations.

More than 250,000 cables were obtained by the whistle-blower website and given to the New York Times and other media groups, which published stories Sunday exposing the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy, including candid and embarrassing assessments of world leaders.

The U.S. Justice Department said it was conducting a criminal investigation of the leak of classified documents and the White House, State Department and Pentagon all said they were taking steps to prevent such disclosures in future.

The 58-year-old prime minister is presented by U.S. diplomats as Russia’s most powerful politician, holding the keys to everything from energy deals to Moscow’s Iran policy.

By contrast, President Dmitry Medvedev “plays Robin to Putin’s Batman,” is pale and hesitant and has to get his decisions approved by Putin, according to the cables.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told Reuters that the nuclear reactor in question had been provided by the United States in the 1960s. The Americans, he said, wanted the fuel back because they said it was their property.

“We said no, because it’s now our property and we will not return it,” Basit said. “This only shows that Pakistan is very sensitive about its nuclear program and would not allow any direct or indirect foreign intrusion.”

“Our relation with nature is reaching a critical point,” Mexican President Felipe Calderon told the opening of the two-week talks in a tightly guarded hotel by the Caribbean with warships patrolling off the coast.

“We either must change our way of life to stop climate change or climate change will permanently alter the way of life of our civilization, and it will not be for the better,” he said.

The pay freeze is part of an effort by Obama to push back against Republicans, who have labeled the president and his Democrats big spenders while taking aim at his policies such as an $814 billion stimulus package and healthcare reform.

The White House estimates the worker pay freeze would save about $2 billion in the current 2011 fiscal year and $28 billion over five years. It would require congressional approval.

The deficit and the national debt have soared in recent years.

The White House sharpened its focus on the issue on Monday, saying President Barack Obama will propose a two-year freeze on the pay of civilian federal workers.

This is what it looks like when the world’s greatest rainforest is thirsty. If climate scientists are right, parched Amazon scenes like this will become more common in the coming decades, possibly threatening the survival of the forest and accelerating global warming.

The environmental and economic consequences could be huge — for Brazil, for South America, for the planet.

The euro traded near two-month lows against the dollar, Italian bond yields jumped and default insurance for Portuguese and Spanish debt hit record highs as investors continued to ask “who’s next” in the euro debt crisis.

While bond yields eased slightly on Irish and Portuguese debt, investors worried big budget deficits could trigger a systemic crisis in the euro zone and demanded a higher premium to hold Belgian and Italian government bonds over benchmark German debt.

Over 4,000 builders and engineers are at work on the sprawling Olkiluoto 3 project, whose turbine hall is so cavernous it could house two Boeing 747 jets stacked on top of each other.

When it is dark, which in winter is most of the day, enormous spotlights throw into focus scores of scaffolding towers and the red hauling equipment that encircle the grey, unfinished reactor building.

The fire occurred less than two days after Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who had attended prayers at the center, was arrested in a sting involving a fake bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Oregon’s largest city, Portland.

The fire damaged a room at the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center in Corvallis before dawn on Sunday. “We do have evidence that it was arson,” said Carla Pusateri of Corvallis Fire Department, who led the initial investigation.

The sentiment is a national characteristic — a feeling of melancholy and resignation and a nostalgia for a past that always seems better than the present. “Saudade” is an essential element of fado, the mournful songs played in the bars of Lisbon’s Bairro Alto at night.

With the government imposing austerity measures and talk in markets that an internationally-funded bailout is needed to overcome a debt crisis, gloom prevails on the streets of the rain-swept capital at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

The repudiation of the elections by so many of the presidential candidates dealt a blow to the credibility of the U.N.-supported poll. The international community was hoping the vote could produce a stable, legitimate government in the poor earthquake-ravaged Caribbean country.

Voters’ frustration at not being able to cast their ballots due to organizational problems at many polling stations in the capital Port-au-Prince boiled over into street protests. At least one polling station was trashed by one angry group.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that WikiLeaks acted illegally in posting the material. She said the Obama administration was taking “aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information.”

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the U.S. would not rule out taking action against WikiLeaks. Attorney General Eric Holder said the administration would prosecute if violations of federal law are found in an ongoing criminal investigation of the incident.

“Small businesses and families are tightening their belts,” Obama said in brief remarks at the White House. “The government should, too.” The administration said the plan was designed to save more than $5 billion over the first two years.

The proposal, which must be approved by Congress, would not apply to the military, but it would affect all others on the Executive Branch payroll. It would not affect members of Congress or their staffs, defense contractors, postal workers or federal court judges and workers.

The shooting in a remote area near the Pakistani border appeared to be the deadliest attack of its kind in at least two years.

Attacks on NATO troops by Afghan policemen or soldiers, although still rare, have increased as the coalition has accelerated the program. Other problems with the rapidly growing security forces include drug use, widespread illiteracy and high rates of attrition.

The country’s most powerful opposition movement, the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, acknowledged that its lawmakers may be all but completely swept out of parliament by what it and other called rampant rigging.

That’s a significant blow to the group, which held 88 seats – a fifth – of the outgoing parliament, and it is widely believed that it was the government goal to drive out its only real rival’s lawmakers. The election showed the Brotherhood’s limited options after repeated crackdowns in past years – including the arrest of some 1,400 of its activists in the weeks ahead of the vote.

Picasso’s heirs are claiming theft, the art world is savoring what appears to be an authentic find, and the workman, who installed burglar alarms for Picasso, is defending what he calls a gift from the most renowned artist of the 20th century.

Picasso’s son and other heirs say they were approached by electrician Pierre Le Guennec in September to authenticate the undocumented art from Picasso’s signature Cubist period.

Duke was No. 1 on all but seven ballots last week but Michigan State, which got six No. 1 votes, and Kansas State, which had the other, both lost – the latter to the Blue Devils as they won the CBE Classic.

The wins over Marquette, Kansas State and Oregon made the Blue Devils the first unanimous No. 1 since Kentucky did it for one week last season.

The defections underscore dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party – particularly in the South – and will give Republicans a stronger hand in everything from pushing a conservative fiscal and social agenda to redrawing political maps.

In Alabama, four Democrats announced last week they were joining the GOP, giving Republicans a supermajority in the House that allows them to pass legislation without any support from the other party. The party switch of a Democratic lawmaker from New Orleans handed control of Louisiana’s House to Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction.

President Barack Obama and most Democrats want to retain them for any couple earning $250,000 or less a year. Republicans are bent on making them permanent for everybody, including the richest.

The cuts apply to rates on wage income as well as to dividends and capital gains. A failure to act would mean big tax increases for people at every income level. Also at stake is the hope that Republicans and Democrats can work together, on this or any other issue, in the fading days of this congressional session or next year when Republicans gain control of the House.

Portland Mayor Sam Adams said Sunday that he beefed up protection around mosques “and other facilities that might be vulnerable to knuckle-headed retribution” after hearing of the bomb plot.

The move followed a fire Sunday at the Islamic center in Corvallis, a college town about 75 miles southwest of Portland, where suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud occasionally worshipped, prompting an FBI arson investigation and concern about the potential for more retaliation.

Some put these wheeled homes in their backyards to use as offices, studios or extra bedrooms. Others use them as mobile vacation homes they can park in the woods. But the most intrepid of the tiny house owners live in them full-time, paring down their possessions and often living off the grid.

“It’s very un-American in the sense that living small means consuming less,” said Jay Shafer, 46, co-founder of the Small House Society, sitting on the porch of his wooden cabin in California wine country. “Living in a small house like this really entails knowing what you need to be happy and getting rid of everything else.”

TCU’s board of trustees unanimously approved an invitation Monday to join the Big East in football and all other sports. The move from the Mountain West Conference becomes official July 1, 2012.

The Big East will provide TCU automatic access to the Bowl Championship Series and its five big-money games. That league, currently with eight football teams, has one of six automatic BCS slots.

So if a heart attack damages muscle tissue in the heart, for example, doctors may someday be able to get other cells in that organ to become muscle to help the heart pump.

That’s a futuristic idea, but researchers are enthusiastic about the potential for the new direct-conversion approach.

The jail term piles a new penalty on the 74-year-old Aziz, the only Christian in Saddam’s inner circle who already faces an execution sentence from another case.

It is the fourth set of charges against Aziz, who is asking Iraqi President Jalal Talabani for a pardon to spare him from execution. Aziz attorney Giovanni di Stefano said Monday afternoon that it is also the last legal hurdle that the former diplomat and deputy prime minister had to face before Talabani could consider pardoning him.

With each of the NFL’s eight divisions tightly jumbled after this weekend’s games, the last five weeks of the regular season are sure to be filled with plenty of unpredictable drama.

Take the wild NFC West, where Seattle and St. Louis are matched at the top with records below .500 at 5-6 – with Arizona and San Francisco playing Monday night and the winner moving a game behind at 4-7.

Shares in Ireland’s banks rose sharply as markets were encouraged by the bailout’s immediate focus on injecting ?10 billion into the cash-strapped lenders out of a total of ?67.5 billion ($89 billion) in loans.

But the Irish were shocked by a key condition for the rescue – that the government use ?17.5 billion of its own cash and pension reserves to shore up its public finances, which have been overwhelmed by recession and exceptional costs of a runaway bank-bailout effort.

The proposed changes by the International Civil Aviation Organization concentrate on “supply-chain security,” or checking outbound shipments before they even reach the airport. A draft of new guidelines will go out to all 190 member countries in the next few weeks, the agency says.

Governments are increasingly worried about cargo security as the holiday season swells the number of packages moving around the world.

Tragically, the agency thought it had its best chance last year at a secret base in Afghanistan, but instead fell victim to a double agent’s devastating suicide bombing.

The CIA missed a chance to nab Ayman al-Zawahri in 2003 in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar, where he met with another senior al-Qaida leader who was apprehended the next day, several current and former U.S. intelligence officials said.

During two weeks of talks, the 193-nation U.N. conference hopes to conclude agreements that will clear the way to mobilize billions of dollars for developing countries and give them green technology to help them shift from fossil fuels affecting climate change.

After a disappointing summit last year in Copenhagen, no hope remains of reaching an overarching deal this year setting legal limits on how much major countries would be allowed to pollute. Such an accord was meant to describe a path toward slashing greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, when scientists say they should be half of today’s levels.

Authorities say they then shaved a swastika on the back of the 22-year-old victim’s head and used markers to scrawl messages and images on his body, including “KKK,” “White Power,” a pentagram and a graphic image of a penis.

The men have become the first in the nation to be charged under a new law that makes it easier for the federal government to prosecute people for hate crimes.

U.S. apple growers say it’s too soon to know whether they’d be interested in the apple: They need to resolve questions about the apple’s quality, the cost of planting and, most importantly, whether people would buy it.

“Genetically modified – that’s a bad word in our industry,” said Todd Fryhover, president of the apple commission in Washington state, which produces more than half the U.S. crop.

On the streets of New York’s diverse Spanish-speaking neighborhoods, it can be heard expressing joy, frustration and outrage.

Perhaps most notoriously in pop culture, it punctuated the film dialogue of 1983’s “Scarface.”