Updated 12:31 p.m. ET: LONDON - Rupert Murdoch was grilled at a high-profile public inquiry into media ethics on Wednesday, rejecting charges that he used his powerful British newspapers to influence politicians for the benefit of his business interests.

He rejected accusations that he used his media empire to play puppet master to a succession of British prime ministers, electrifying a media inquiry that has shaken the government and unnerved much of the establishment. 

What began with cases of voicemail interception at one of his U.K. tabloid newspapers has turned into a critique of how the British media operates -- and a deep look at the influence Murdochs's corporation, News Corp., has had on the highest echelons of government.

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Prime Minister David Cameron appointed judge Brian Leveson to examine Britain's press standards after journalists at Murdoch's weekly News of the World tabloid admitted hacking into phones on a massive scale to generate exclusives.

After taking an oath, Murdoch said he was keen to put straight some myths about him. 

"I have never asked a prime minister for anything," Murdoch said calmly when asked about his links to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, one of his favorite British leaders. Murdoch also claimed he “never asked Tony Blair for anything” despite meeting that former Prime Minister 40 times in person.

Some politicians had expected the 81-year-old - courted by prime ministers and presidents for decades - to come out fighting, having been on the back foot for almost a year over a newspaper phone hacking scandal that has convulsed his empire. 

But Murdoch appeared calm and laconic, at times provoking chuckles from some of the 70 lawyers, family members and journalists packed into the Victorian gothic courtroom when he cracked jokes about the destruction of unions and a disgraced former British minister who lied in court. 

The man who has for years portrayed himself as an underdog, said he had simply tried to shine a light on the country on the behalf of the working classes. 

"I think that it is fair when people hold themselves up as iconic figures, or great actors, that they be looked at," he said. "I don't think they are entitled to the same privacy as the ordinary man on the street." 

But he admitted that his opinion had been carried by newspaper The Sun, one of his favorites for years. "I'm not good at holding my tongue," he said. "If you want to judge my thinking, look at the Sun." 

'Declare war' on News Corp.?
He also shed some light on recent British political history, saying that then Prime Minister Gordon Brown had reacted to the news that the Sun newspaper would be withdrawing its support for the Labour party by threatening to "declare war" on News Corp.  "I did not think he was in a very balanced state of mind," Murdoch said. 

Mr Brown later said Murdoch's claim was "wholly wrong".

Asked if as reported he had initially found Cameron to be lightweight, Murdoch replied: "No. Not then." He had also not found it strange when Cameron took time out of his own private holiday to meet him on a yacht off a Greek island in 2008. 

"I've explained that politicians go out of their way to impress people in the press," he said. 

He played down the influence of his newspapers on the outcome of elections, saying: "It is only natural for politicians to reach out to editors and sometimes proprietors, if they are available, to explain what they are doing and hoping that it makes an impression. But I was only one of several."

Prosecutor Robert Jay asked: "Are you saying that you are completely oblivious to the impact of election outcomes on your commercial interests? Murdoch replied: "Absolutely. I never let my commercial interests, whatever they are, enter into any consideration of elections."

Murdoch candidly described one of his own newspapers' most infamous front page headlines as "tasteless". After the Conservatives scraped a narrow win in the 1992 general election, The Sun, which had backed the party, declared: 'IT WAS THE SUN WOT WON IT'. "We don't have that kind of influence," Murdoch insisted, adding that he had been angry with then editor Kelvin McKenzie about the headline.

He said the notion of his influence over politicians was "a myth", adding: "How I treat Mayor Bloomberg in New York - sends him crazy. But, we support him every time he runs for re-election."

Rupert Murdoch will give further testimony on Thursday, when he is expected to face questions about phone hacking.

'Appalled'
However, in a written submission yesterday he said he was "appalled" to discover that lawyers for his newspaper The Times had misled the inquiry by earlier claiming claiming the title had never been involved in hacking, the Daily Telegraph reported.

It later emerged a Times reporter had hacked into a policeman’s email account. Murdoch said in his witness statement to the inquiry on Wednesday: “I am appalled that the lawyer misled the court and disappointed that the editor published the story.”

This is his second public grilling on the issue. The first was before parliament last July, supported by his son James and protected by his wife. This time he was alone -- although his other son, Lachlan, and wife Wendi Deng were watching from a distance in the public gallery.

Shareholders in News Corp. will be looking very closely at his performance. His task at the inquiry is to defend the world’s second largest media company – and, with it, his own reputation.

Evidence emerged last July that suggested multiple reporters at News of the World hacked into the voicemails of celebrities, the royal family and even a murdered young girl. Those revelations convulsed Murdoch's media empire and provoked a wave of public anger.

More than 100 lawsuits have been filed in the U.K., and a lawyer for hacking victims intends says he intends to file three more in the U.S.  Three ongoing criminal cases in Britain have resulted in a series of arrests.

Critics allege The Sun, endorsed Cameron during the 2010 election in return for support of News Corp’s deal to buy full control of broadcaster BskyB.

Murdoch was the first newspaper boss to visit Cameron after he won the election -- entering via the back door -- and politicians from all parties have lived in fear for decades of his newspapers and what they might reveal about their personal lives.

U.S.-based News Corp, owner of Fox Television and the Wall Street Journal, eventually pulled its bid to buy the 61 percent of satellite broadcaster BSkyB that it did not already own amid the intense political and public pressure over phone hacking.

Opposition politician Chris Bryant, who accepted damages from Murdoch's British newspaper group after the paper admitted hacking his phone, said the media mogul had dominated the political landscape for decades.

“You have only got to watch Rupert Murdoch's staff with him to see how his air of casual violence intimidates people," he told Reuters. "His presence in the British political scene has similarly intimidated people by offering favor to some and fear to all."

Murdoch's relations with prime ministers goes back decades: papers released this year showed that he held a secret meeting with then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1981 to secure his acquisition of the Times of London.

Tony Blair was godfather to one of Murdoch's daughters, Gordon Brown was a personal friend of the Australian-born businessman and Cameron employed as his personal spokesman a former Murdoch editor who was himself implicated in the hacking scandal.

During a parliamentary hearing last year, memorable for the actions of a protester who hit Murdoch in the face with a foam pie, he sat alongside James and spoke often in monosyllables but on occasion hit the table with his fist in frustration at the line of questioning.

Chiara Francavilla, NBC News in London, and Reuters contributed to this report.

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ULUGAN BAY, Philippines - Hundreds of American and Philippine troops waded ashore on Wednesday in a mock assault to retake a small island in energy-rich waters disputed with China, a drill Beijing had said would raise the risk of armed conflict.

The exercises, part of annual U.S.-Philippine war games on the western island of Palawan, coincide with another standoff between Chinese and Philippine vessels near Scarborough Shoal in a different part of the South China Sea.

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China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan across the South China Sea, each searching for gas and oil while building up their navies and military alliances.

China said last week the drill would raise the risk of confrontation. On Wednesday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said China was committed to dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the dispute.

"We are certainly worried about the South China Sea issue," Cui told a news briefing in Beijing, saying "some people tried to mix two unrelated things, territorial sovereignty and freedom of navigation."

Historical records
The comments come before high-level talks with the Obama administration. China, which claims the South China Sea based on historical records, has sought to resolve disputes bilaterally but its neighbors worry over what some see as growing Chinese assertiveness in its claims in the region.

"Location (of the drill) is irrelevant," Ensign Bryan Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Marines, told reporters.

"These exercises take place on a regular basis. This year it happens to be in Palawan. The planning for this took place months ago prior to any events that are currently in the headlines."

China, Russia begin naval war games

President Barack Obama has sought to reassure regional allies that Washington would serve as a counterbalance to China in the South China Sea, part of his campaign to "pivot" U.S. foreign policy towards Asia after wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Philippine military officials sought to play down the exercise. Lieutenant General Juancho Sabban, military commander for the western Philippines, said the drill "simply means we want to work together, improve our skills."

Sabban's area of command includes Reed Bank and the Spratlys, a group of 250 mostly uninhabitable islets spread over 165,000 sq miles west of Palawan.

The Spratlys are claimed entirely by China, Taiwan and Vietnam and in part by Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

Huge oil reserves
Proven and undiscovered oil reserve estimates in the South China Sea range as high as 213 billion barrels of oil, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a 2008 report. That would surpass every country's proven oil reserves except Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, according to the BP Statistical Review.

A Philippine exploration firm, Philex Petroleum Corp, said on Tuesday its unit, Forum Energy Plc, had found more natural gas than expected around Reed Bank, where Chinese navy vessels tried to ram one of Forum Energy's survey ships last year.

The Philippines is due to open oil-and-gas exploration bids in Reed Bank on Friday.

NYT: Signs of an Asian arms buildup in India missile test

Vietnam reasserted its claim to the Spratlys and the Paracel islands, known in Chinese as the Xisha islands, further west of Scarborough Shoal in what it calls the East Sea.

Self-ruled Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province, reiterated its claims over territories in the South China Sea and urged "countries concerned to exercise self-restraint so that peaceful resolutions can be reached through consultation".

Sabban said the military drill was not focused on China.

"Never was China ever mentioned in our planning and execution," he told reporters. "China should not be worried about Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises."

Amphibious assault
Nearly 7,000 American and Philippine troops were launched from U.S. and Philippine ships in the simulated amphibious assault to recapture an island supposedly taken by militants.

Commandos came ashore from U.S. and Philippine ships in a simulated amphibious assault to recapture an island supposedly taken by militants.

Jumping from rubber boats as they hit the shore, the commandos engaged in a mock firefight, making their way inch by inch from the beach to a navy facility to rescue "hostages" and recapture the base.

Read more China coverage on our Behind The Wall blog

Four days ago, commando teams rappelled from U.S. helicopters and landed from rubber boats in a mock assault to retake an oil rig in northern Palawan, 11 miles off the town of El Nido on the South China Sea.

The annual war games come under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, part of a web of security alliances the United States built in the Asia-Pacific region during the Cold War.

The drills are a rehearsal of a mutual defense plan by the two allies to repel any aggression in the Philippines.

Hundreds of kilometers to the north, a Philippine coast guard ship patrols near Scarborough Shoal, a group of half-submerged rock formations 124 nautical miles west of the Philippines' main island of Luzon.

Philippine and Chinese ships are often in the same areas of the South China Sea, with two Chinese maritime surveillance ships a few miles away from the coast guard vessel and five Chinese fishing boats working the waters nearby.

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North Korea could carry out an underground test of a nuclear weapon as early as Tuesday night as the North's reclusive leadership dramatically tries to up the stakes with the U.S. and the West, U.S. officials told NBC News.

U.S. officials say North Korea may already have an arsenal between 12 and a "few dozen" far more advanced weapons, many more than generally believed.

The officials couldn't be specific on a date for the test, but they told NBC News they were "100 percent" certain there would be a nuclear test within the next two weeks or "at any time."

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Tensions between North and South Korea increased this week when Pyongyang threatened to turn Seoul into "ashes." While the North regularly issues such threats, the South seemed to be taking this round of threats more seriously by increasing its security.

U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies have been monitoring test preparations at P'unggye-yok, the North Korean test site near the Chinese border, for the past several weeks. As new evidence of tunneling emerged, officials began to see Army Day celebrations scheduled for Wednesday (Tuesday night in the U.S.) as a possible date for the test.

It will be the first time the country's 29-year-old leader, Kim Jong Un, will get a chance to address the Korean People's Army as commander.

At the high end of the range, U.S. officials and other researchers said, North Korea may already have up to "a few dozen" nuclear weapons that could be fitted atop its vast fleet of ballistic missiles. Currently, North Korean missiles are limited to an intermediate range, capable of hitting cities in Japan or South Korea but not the United States. What the new test could reveal is an improvement in the type of weapons North Korea has.

For the past several years, the U.S. has been monitoring North Korean research into thermonuclear weapons, hydrogen bombs and bombs known as boosted fission weapons, in which plutonium and uranium are combined.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, or ISIS, a nonpartisan nuclear arms research group, said Tuesday that the tests may also be about ensuring the reliability of North Korea's current weapons design.

"Once you get beyond a dozen, it makes sense to test type and reliability of your weapons," he said.

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Albright said that his group's estimate of North Korea's weapons stockpile is a bit less than those provided by the U.S. officials but that ISIS, too, believes Pyongyang has "missile-deliverable weapons."

North Korea successfully tested nuclear weapons in 2006 and 2009. In both cases, the first word came in statements from the North Korean Foreign Ministry hours before the tests were carried out. No such statement has been issued yet, but a U.S. official said it's possible that this time North Korea wouldn't follow the same protocol.

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Ten days ago, North Korea failed in its attempt to launch an observation satellite, a test the U.S. believed was a cover for test of intercontinental missile technology. In response, the U.S. canceled an agreement that would have provided 241,000 tons of nutritional aid, while the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to "strongly condemn" the failed launch and said it would tighten sanctions against Pyongyang's government.

Albright added that North Korea might not want to test its weapons to their full yield in order to avoid another embarrassment, noting that the geology around the test site is fragile and that a large test could aggravate that issue.

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FBI director Robert Mueller visited Yemen on Tuesday, pledging to help quell an Islamist insurgency there, as security and government sources said a U.S. drone had killed a prominent al-Qaida leader linked to an attack on a French oil tanker.

In a meeting with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who took office earlier this year, Mueller promised that the United States would continue to support Yemen "with full force" in all respects.

"Mueller visits Yemen on an annual basis so this is not a special or secret occasion," said Mohammed Al-Basha, Yemen's embassy spokesman in Washington. "President Hadi emphasized that he is strongly committed to combating extremism and working with the U.S. to counter the mutual threat of terrorism."

Separately, the Yemeni embassy in Washington said on Tuesday that Mohammed Saeed al-Umda, convicted in 2005 of involvement in the 2003 attack on the Limburg oil tanker, had been killed in an air strike on his convoy in the oil-producing province of Maarib on Sunday. It did not specify whether it was a U.S. strike.

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Umda, described by the embassy as Yemen's fourth-most wanted man, had received military training under Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and was in charge of the group's finances, a security source said.

The United States has repeatedly used drones to target suspected al-Qaida militants, who have been emboldened by a year of political upheaval in the impoverished state.

Exploiting mass protests against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33 years in office, militants linked to al-Qaida last year seized large swathes of territory in southern Yemen, including at least two towns.

Yemen's army, which split into two factions during the uprising that eventually unseated Saleh, has been battling to get the upper hand against the militants.

On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry put the total number of militants killed in the volatile southern Abyan province over the past two days in the latest bout of fighting at 52.

It said the Yemeni army has also seized some government offices from militants as they pushed deep inside the provincial capital of Zinjibar.

In an emailed statement, Ansar al-Sharia, an al-Qaida-affiliated group, said its fighters has blocked the army advance, and challenged the authorities to issue "just one recent photograph showing troops inside the city (Zinjibar)".

The statement did not refer to the drone attack.

Saleh's half-brother steps aside
President Hadi is trying to reform the army, but has run up against the vested interests of Saleh's relatives and allies still in charge of the military and security establishment.

In a modest victory for Hadi, Mohammed Saleh al-Ah mar, a half-brother of Saleh left his post as air force commander on Tuesday. Earlier this month, he shut down the capital's airport and grounded all flights to protest against his removal in a direct challenge to Hair's authority.

"The handover has taken place as stated in the decree issued by the president," U.N. envoy Jamalco Benchmark told reporters in Sanaa. "It was a smooth handover with no conditions whatsoever."

The development is the first time Hadi has succeeded in distancing Saleh's relatives from power - but Saleh's son, nephew and other allies remain in place as heads of key military units.

Benchmark, who helped push through the plan under which Saleh eventually left office after more than a year of popular unrest, persuaded the former president to lean on his half-brother to step aside, a government official said.

"The U.N. envoy Jamalco Benchmark conducted negotiations to convince the former president of the need to implement the decree to remove his half brother from the leadership of the air force," said the official, on condition of anonymity.

General Rash Ali Nasser al-Jund replaces Saleh's half-brother as head of the air force. Mohammed Saleh al-Ah mar has been appointed an assistant to the defence minister.

Hadi, who had been Saleh's vice-president, was elected president unopposed in February under a U.S.-backed transition plan broke red by Yemen's wealthy Gulf neighbors, anxious to halt a slide into mayhem.

In a separate incident on Tuesday, a local security source said the head of political security in southern Lahej province had survived an assassination attempt that had left him with severe injuries. The source said a bomb had been attached to his car and it exploded when he started the engine.

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A Peruvian court is considering a U.S. request to extradite convicted killer Joran van der Sloot over charges related to the 2005 death of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, a judiciary spokesman told NBC News on Tuesday.

The 24-year-old Dutchman, serving 28 years for murdering business student Stephany Flores in a Lima hotel room, is the chief suspect in Holloway's 2005 disappearance in Aruba. He faces U.S. extortion and wire fraud charges.

"Yes, the request has been made ... we are discussing that subject now," said Juan Medina, a spokesman for the Peruvian court system.

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Van der Sloot is charged with demanding $250,000 from Holloway’s mother in exchange for information about the location of her daughter's body. But the information he gave, according to authorities, was false.

During an interview with a journalist, van der Sloot admitted to the extortion attempt, saying he had decided to tell the family what he thought they wanted to hear, because he was angry with comments they had made in media. 

Investigators say Holloway wired him $25,000.

Soon after, he was arrested in Peru for the murder of Flores, who died on the five-year anniversary of Holloway’s disappearance.

A U.S. trial is slated for 2015, with van der Sloot facing 25 years in prison if convicted.

Holloway was 18 when she vanished during a Caribbean holiday. Her body has not been found and she was declared to be deceased in January this year. Van der Sloot, who lived in Aruba at the time, was one of the last seen with her.

He was twice arrested in the case and spent three months in jail but was never formally charged.

Flores died May 30, 2010, five years to the day after Holloway vanished. Van der Sloot admitted on Jan. 12 this year that he had killed Flores -- a day before Holloway was declared dead.

In an initial confession he later said was coerced, van der Sloot said he killed Flores, 21, who was beaten and strangled, in a burst of rage after she accessed files about Holloway on his computer.

This article also includes reporting by Reuters.

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South Sudan accused Sudan on Tuesday of mounting bombing raids on the newly independent country's oil-producing border region and President Salva Kiir said the latest hostilities amounted to a declaration of a war by his northern neighbor.

Weeks of cross-border fighting between the former civil war foes have threatened to escalate into a full blown conflict in a region that holds one of Africa's most significant oil reserves.

Although both Sudan, ruled by President Omar al-Bashir since 1989, and South Sudan, which became independent last July under a peace deal with Khartoum, can ill-afford a protracted war, both countries have fueled tensions with bellicose rhetoric.

The United States, China and Britain urged both sides to return to the negotiating table.

"We strongly condemn Sudan's military incursion into South Sudan. Sudan must immediately halt the aerial and artillery bombardment in South Sudan by the Sudan armed forces," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Sudan's foreign minister said he was ready to discuss security issues with the South.

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Philip Aguer, spokesman for South Sudan's army, or the SPLA, said Sudanese Antonov aircraft had flown up to 40 km (25 miles) into South Sudan's territory to bomb the settlements of Teschween, Panakuach and Roliaq on Monday night. Taban Deng Gai, governor of Unity State where the raids occurred, said bombs had hit Lalop market and Panakuach.

The raids came after the SPLA said Sudan bombed a market early on Monday near the oil town of Bentiu, capital of Unity state, and killed two civilians, an attack they said amounted to a declaration of war. The United Nations condemned the attack.

The Sudanese army denied carrying out air strikes.

Speaking in China, which has significant oil and business interests in both African countries, Kiir said Sudan had declared on his country.

PhotoBlog: South Sudanese run for cover as Sudan bombs border area

"It (this visit) comes at a very critical moment for the Republic of South Sudan because our neighbor in Khartoum has declared war on the Sudan," he told Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Hu called for restraint, urging the two neighbors to settle their disputes peacefully.

In addition to halting nearly all oil production, the recent fighting has displaced some 35,0000 people in areas around Heglig, Talodi and other parts of South Kordofan, the U.N. Refugee Agency said, citing its local partners.

"The urgent task is to actively cooperate with the mediation efforts of the international community and halt armed conflict in the border areas," China's state television paraphrased Hu as telling Kiir.

South Sudan said on Friday it would withdrew from the disputed Heglig oilfield it seized earlier this month, bowing to demands from the U.N. Security Council.

The SPLA's withdrawal from the oilfield, which used to produce about half of Sudan's total oil output, reduced the risk of an all-out war but Juba has accused Khartoum of daily air bombardments on its territories since then.

"We have not declared war but the SPLA is on maximum alert because if they attack they will not (catch) the SPLA off guard, Aguer told reporters in Juba.

"If they don't stop bombardment, if they don't stop the incursion into our territories, I assure you the SPLA is capable of retaking all of these areas that they are occupying by force," he said.

South Sudan became independent last year, breaking up what was Africa's largest country under a 2005 peace agreement that ended two decades of civil war.

But the two territories have yet to settle a long list of disputes including the position of their shared border, the ownership of critical territories and how much the landlocked South should pay in oil transit fees to Sudan.

The disputes have already halted nearly all oil production, choking the two countries' largely oil-dependent economies.

For China, the standoff shows how its economic expansion abroad has at times forced Beijing to deal with distant quarrels it would like to avoid.

A South Sudanese official, deputy chief of protocol Gum Bol Noah, said China had agreed to provide technical assistance on an alternative oil pipeline to Kenya, but would wait until the situation was calmer.

Juba has said it wants to build a pipeline within one year to end its dependency on Sudan's oil transit and export facilities, but experts say the project is not viable without significant new oil discoveries.

Bashir has ruled out a return to negotiations with Juba, saying the South's government only understands "the language of guns".

But Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti said Khartoum was ready to negotiate with the South on "security issues".

"I'm now ready to talk, but on the security issues," Karti told reporters in Addis Ababa after meeting officials from the African Union, who have urged both sides to return to talks.

South Sudan Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said Kiir's visit to China was intended to improve relations that were strained after Juba expelled the head of a China-led oil consortium it accused of helping Sudan to "steal" southern oil.

"The relations we have been having with them (China), with Khartoum on the other side, have not been clear," he told reporters in Juba.

"There must be some sort of relationship where China can play a positive role, even in this war. You see it is like a case of a husband with two wives," he said referring to China's relationship with both Sudans. 

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BEIJING - North Korea has almost completed preparations for a third nuclear test, a senior source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters, which will draw further international condemnation following a failed rocket launch if it goes ahead.

The isolated and impoverished state sacrificed the chance of closer ties with the United States when it launched the long-range rocket on April 13 and was censured by the U.N. Security Council, including the North's sole major ally, China.

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Critics say the rocket launch was aimed at honing the North's ability to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States, a move that would dramatically increase its military and diplomatic heft.

Now the North appears to be about to carry out a third nuclear test after two in 2006 and 2009.

"Soon. Preparations are almost complete," the source said when asked whether North Korea was planning to conduct a nuclear test.

North Korea threatens to reduce South Korea's government 'to ashes'

This is the first time a senior official has confirmed the planned test and the source has correctly predicted events in the past, telling Reuters about the 2006 test days before it happened.

The rocket launch and nuclear test come as Kim Jong-un, the third in his family line to rule North Korea, seeks to cement his grip on power.

Kim took office in December and has lauded the country's military might, reaffirming his father's "military first" policies that have stunted economic development and appearing to dash slim hopes of an opening to the outside world.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, which have most to fear from any North Korean nuclear threat, are watching events anxiously and many observers say that Pyongyang may have the capacity to conduct a test using highly enriched uranium for the first time.

Defense experts say that by successfully enriching uranium, to make bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima nearly 70 years ago, the North would be able to significantly build up stocks of weapons-grade nuclear material.

It would also allow it more easily to manufacture a nuclear warhead to mount on a long-range missile.

The source did not specify whether the test would be a third test using plutonium, of which it has limited stocks, or whether Pyongyang would use uranium.

South Korean defense sources have been quoted in domestic media as saying a launch could come within two weeks and one North Korea analyst has suggested that it could come as early as the North's "Army Day" on Wednesday.

Other observers say that any date is pure speculation.

The rocket launch and the planned nuclear test have exposed the limits of China's hold over Pyongyang. Beijing is the North's sole major ally and props up the state with investment and fuel.

"China is like a chameleon toward North Korea," said Kim Young-soo, professor of political science at Sogang University in Seoul. "It says it objects to North Korea's provocative acts, but it does not participate in punishing the North."

North Korea's Kim Jong Un speaks publicly for first time, urges 'final victory'

Reports have suggested that a Chinese company may have supplied a rocket launcher shown off at a military parade to mark this month's centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the state's founder, something that may be in breach of UN sanctions.

China has denied breaching sanctions.

The source said there was debate in North Korea's top leadership over whether to go ahead with the launch in the face of U.S. warnings and the possibility of further U.N. sanctions, but that hawks in the Korean People's Army had won the debate.

The source dismissed speculation that the failed launch had dealt a blow to Kim Jong-un, believed to be in his late 20s, who came to power after his father Kim Jong-il died following a 17-year rule that saw North Korea experience a famine in the 1990s.

"Kim Jong-un was named first secretary of the (ruling) Workers' Party and head of the National Defence Commission," the source said, adding that the titles further consolidated his grip on power.

North Korean media has recently upped its criticism of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who cut off aid to Pyongyang when he took power in 2008, calling him a "rat" and a "bastard" and threatening to turn the South Korean capital to ashes.

Pyongyang desperately wants recognition from the United States, the guarantor of the South's security. It claims sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula, as does South Korea.

"North Korea may consider abandoning (the test) if the United States agrees to a peace treaty," the source said, reiterating a long-standing demand by Pyongyang for recognition by Washington and a treaty to end the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in a truce. 

 

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LONDON - A British fund-raising marathon runner who collapsed and died less than one mile before the finish line of London's Marathon has inspired thousands of Internet donations totaling more than half a million dollars.

Claire Squires, from Leicestershire, England, was entering the home stretch of the 26 mile London Marathon on Sunday when she collapsed in Birdcage Walk, near St James's Park.

Despite efforts by first-responders, the 30-year-old died at the scene.

She had been running to raise money for the suicide support group, Samaritans, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph. It said her brother, Grant, died from an overdose at age 25 and her mother, Priscilla, has been a volunteer at the charity for a number of years.

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She had raised £500 ($807) from family and friends for the charity by the time Sunday’s race began. "If everyone I know could donate £5.00 ($8) that would be a great help and change lives," she wrote on her fund-raising Internet page.

However, since news of her death broke, cash has been flooding in at a rate of hundreds of pounds a minute. By Tuesday morning there were over 28,000 donations totaling £318,000 ($513,000).

Catherine Johnstone, chief executive of Samaritans, which counsels the depressed and suicidal, told Agence France-Presse: "This is an incredibly sad time for Claire's family and all those who knew her.

"We desperately wish that it was not under these circumstances but we have been overwhelmed by the response from people donating in Claire's memory.

"These donations will be put into a tribute fund and, following discussions with the family, will go towards projects they feel would have been important to Claire."

Squires' family said in a statement: "Words cannot explain what an incredible, inspirational, beautiful and driven person she was. She was loved by so many and is dearly missed by all of us."

Tests to establish why Squires collapsed as she neared the finish line are expected to take place in the coming days.

She was the 11th runner to die in the London Marathon since the event started in 1981.

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LONDON – My daughter Juliette is thirty-something, a former executive assistant to a top CEO, a mother of two and expecting her third child. Her husband, Nader, is a designer and engineer of energy systems. They are upwardly mobile, and they are both French, living in Paris.

While they hardly see themselves as radicals, they did something Sunday that even surprised them: They voted for Jean-Luc Melenchon – the fiery former Trotskyist backed by the Communists – in the first round of the French presidential elections.

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I wasn’t too surprised. Both Juliette and Nader are articulate, independent adults who, like many French people, often vote with their hearts in the first round of balloting, and then with their heads, or wallets, in the key run-off two weeks later.

But why Melenchon? Was this just a creative way to let off steam? A protest vote?

"Well, it’s true, we were probably voting with our hormones this time around," Juliette admitted. "But people are so fed up with [President Nicolas] Sarkozy, it wasn’t like our votes weren’t well thought out.’"

Waking up Monday morning, she and Nader were trying – much like the rest of the nation – to sort out their mixed feelings about what had happened.

Sarkozy, Hollande advance in French vote; far right's Le Pen gets 20 percent

Most of all, they said they were "shocked" by the record near-20 percent of the vote garnered by Marine Le Pen, the extreme-right National Front candidate who ran on a platform of cracking down on immigrants and beefing up France’s borders.

Nader, a French-Arab whose parents immigrated to France from Tunisia and Yemen in the 1960s, is only too aware of the tinderbox such a policy would set off within the French Muslim community.

At the same time, they were "pleased" that Socialist candidate Francois Hollande won the first round – with a modest 29 percent of the vote – and believe he’ll be the next French President.  They were also surprised Sarkozy did so well – less than 2 percent behind Hollande – and that "the trickster" might still find a way to pull a rabbit out of his hat.

His most likely rabbit is an appeal to Le Pen’s right-wing constituents. On Monday, Sarkozy was out stumping, wooing Le Pen voters with a pledge to get tough on immigration and security. The irony that Sarkozy’s relatives immigrated from Hungary and Greece during the chaos of the early 20^th century seemed to be lost on no one except Sarkozy himself.

But Hollande’s political tap dance over the next two weeks may be even trickier than Sarkozy’s, as Hollande needs to win over not only French voters such as Juliette and Nader, who went for Melenchon in the first round, but also a significant number of "centrists," many of whom believe that Hollande is just window-dressing for France’s old diehard Communists.

In other words, Hollande will have to prove to the left that he’s strong enough to defy Germany’s Prime Minister Angela Merkel and the other Eurozone rulers with promises of stimulating the French economy, but not alienate his center with too much talk of tax and spend.

Impossible? That’s what Sarkozy’s camp – and many economists – are saying.

Certainly, the international financial markets are worried about the prospect of a Hollande presidency on Monday. The euro fell 1 percent, U.K. blue chips dropped 2 percent, while the Dow-Jones industrial average plummeted more than150 points at the starting bell and was down all day.

4-month presidential campaign with no television ads? Welcome to France

But there’s no great belief, even among his supporters, that Sarkozy can bring anything new to the table to solve France’s two key problems: stalled growth and high unemployment.

While he talks about austerity and reforms, he hasn’t had the courage to impose either on an electorate who still deeply believe that the French model of a government-subsidized "worker’s paradise" is the best on Earth, and mustn’t be tampered with.

So forget about the polls. The real campaign has just begun. This French presidential election – like so many before it – is now shaping up to be a photo finish between the Left and the Right, and whose voodoo can bridge the two sides.

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LONDON - James Murdoch defended his record at the head of his father's scandal-tarred British newspaper unit before a U.K. inquiry Tuesday, saying that subordinates prevented him from making a clean sweep at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid. 

Speaking under oath at Lord Justice Brian Leveson's inquiry into media ethics, Murdoch repeated allegations that the tabloid's then-editor Colin Myler and the company's former in-house lawyer Tom Crone misled him about the scale of illegal behavior at the newspaper. 

Leveson asked Murdoch: "Can you think of a reason why Mr. Myler or Mr. Crone should keep this information from you? Was your relationship with them such that they may think: 'Well we needn't bother him with that' or 'We better keep it from it because he'll ask to cut out the cancer'?" 

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"That must be it," Murdoch said. "I would say: 'Cut out the cancer,' and there was some desire to not do that." 

The 39-year-old Murdoch said that at the time he had no reason to doubt his subordinates when he took over at News International, which published the News of the World, saying he had repeatedly been told that nothing was amiss. 

"I was given assurances by them, which proved to be wrong," he said. 

Revelations that reporters at the News of the World had hacked into the phones of hundreds of high-profile people, including a teenage murder victim, pushed Murdoch's father Rupert to close the 168-year-old newspaper, triggered three U.K. police investigations, led to more than 100 lawsuits, and launched Leveson's inquiry into media practices. 

James Murdoch has found himself sucked into the center of scandal, with critics saying that he should have found out about the wrongdoing once he took over at News International in December 2007. 

The uproar over illegal behavior at the News of the World has already scuttled Murdoch's multi-billion dollar bid for full control of satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC. He resigned from his post as chairman earlier this month "to avoid being a lightning rod," he said. 

Murdoch's relationship with politicians also came under scrutiny. 

The American-born News Corp. executive revealed that he'd told Conservative leader David Cameron that The Sun newspaper would endorse the Tories' election bid at a meeting at the George club in London on Sept. 10, 2009. 

The top-selling paper's endorsement was a blow to Britain's Labour Party — and critics claim that it helped secure Tory approval for the potentially lucrative BSkyB bid after they won the election in 2010. 

Murdoch denied the charge Tuesday. 

"I would never have made that kind of a crass calculation," Murdoch said. "It just wouldn't occur to me." 

Murdoch acknowledged talking to Cameron about it at a Christmas dinner in 2010 — after the Tory leader had been elected prime minister — but said it was "a tiny side conversation ahead of a dinner." 

Judge slams Murdoch's Sky News for illegal email hacking

"It wasn't really a discussion, if you will," Murdoch said. 

Cameron, who won power two years ago, has been forced to play down his contacts with the Murdochs and with Rebecca Brooks, a neighbor and frequent guest at his home in the countryside.

Rupert Murdoch, who is still chairman and chief executive of News International's parent company News Corp., is scheduled to appear before the inquiry on Wednesday. 

U.S.-based News Corp, owner of Fox Television and the Wall Street Journal, was thwarted in its ambition last year to buy the 61 percent of BSkyB, a major British pay-TV provider, that it did not already own. Amid the fire storm of scandal at the News of the World, it withdrew the bid.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Criminal charges over the death of a British spy – whose body was found in a sports bag – are a “real possibility,” a lawyer for police reportedly told a coroner Monday.

Gareth Williams, 31, a math prodigy who graduated from university at the age of 17, was found dead in his immaculate apartment in Pimlico, London, in August 2010.

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At the opening of a hearing into the cause of his death, Vincent Williams, a lawyer for London’s Metropolitan Police, said he sought to block the coroner from making video footage related to the case public, The Guardian newspaper reported.

The lawyer said a "careful line must be struck between open justice" at the hearing and the investigation by police, according to The Guardian.

Asked why information should not be made public, the lawyer told the coroner “because there is a live, complex, ongoing investigation taking place.”

Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

"It is because there may be criminal proceedings further down the line that the commissioner feels that the pattern of disclosure … has to be done with some care,” the lawyer added, saying charges were still a "real possibility."

Coroner Fiona Wilcox said there was a risk of harm to the U.K.’s national security and relations with other countries if some of those giving evidence at the hearing were named, The Guardian reported.

Mystery couple sought in UK cyberspy's bizarre death

Williams’ relatives have expressed fears that "some agency specializing in the dark arts" will prevent them from finding out the truth about his death, The Guardian said.

The dead man’s sister, Ceri Subbe, told the hearing she did not enjoy the culture of “flash car competitions,” “post-work drinking” and “rat race” at MI6, the U.K.’s secret intelligence service, The Telegraph newspaper reported.

Wilcox asked Subbe if she was surprised that more than £20,000 worth of female clothing was found in Williams’ apartment.

“I am not surprised, he was very generous with gifts,” Subbe said, adding that he may have collected the clothes because of his interest in fashion.

She said Williams was a cautious man and would not have let anyone inside his home if they had not been security vetted.

The hearing at Westminster Coroner’s Court in London is continuing.

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LONDON -- The judge presiding over an inquiry into British press standards on Monday rebuked the head of Sky News, the influential news channel of Rupert Murdoch-controlled BSkyB, for breaking the law by hacking into emails to generate a story. 

Prime Minister David Cameron ordered judge Brian Leveson to examine standards after Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid admitted hacking thousands of phones to produce ever-more salacious stories.  

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BSkyB, the highly profitable satellite broadcaster 39-percent owned by Murdoch, had previously avoided any fallout from the hacking scandal, but its admission this month that it accessed private emails for a story in 2008 on insurance fraud risked dragging the company into the frame. 

John Ryley, the head of Sky News, has defended the channel's actions and said it was acting in the public interest, but Leveson appeared annoyed as Ryley and a barrister in the inquiry discussed whether the action broke the U.K.'s broadcasting code, run by the Ofcom watchdog body. 

'Breaching the criminal law'
Ryley had just taken the oath at the high-profile media inquiry and had started to explain the 2008 email hacking when Leveson interjected. 

"What you were doing wasn't merely invading somebody's privacy, it was breaching the criminal law," Leveson said to Ryley. 

"It was," Ryley replied after a pause. 

"Well, where does the Ofcom broadcasting code give any authority to a breach of the criminal law?" Leveson asked. 

"It doesn't," Ryley replied. 

 

Ofcom said earlier on Monday it had launched its own investigation into Sky News over the email hacking admission. Sky said it passed information onto the police that helped to secure a criminal conviction. 

"Ofcom is investigating the fairness and privacy issues raised by Sky News' statement that it had accessed without prior authorization private email accounts during the course of its news investigations," an Ofcom spokesman said. "We will make the outcome known in due course." 

The story involved was the bizarre case of the so-called "canoe man," who faked his own death after paddling out to sea. Sky News said the information it found was given to police and helped to secure the conviction of the man's wife over an insurance fraud. 

Criminal charges considered over newspaper phone hacking in UK

Ofcom is already looking closely at parent company BSkyB as to whether its owners and directors are fit to own a broadcast license in light of the problems at the newspaper division. 

 Phone-hacking lawsuits to be filed in US courts

Ryley also apologized for an earlier statement made to the Leveson inquiry asserting that no Sky journalists had intercepted communications, but, at the end of the 80-minute hearing, he was given the chance to state that Sky News was entirely separate from the newspaper division of News Corp. 

"Our journalistic endeavors, our journalistic activities, our management structures are very separate," he said. 

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Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

 

President Barack Obama unveiled sanctions on Monday against those who help Syria and Iran track dissidents through cell phones and computers and said he would keep adding pressure on both governments to prevent mass atrocities.

In a somber speech at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Obama said Damascus and Tehran were monitoring the social media tools that allowed democracy campaigners to organize rallies in the Middle East to plot attacks against opposition groups.

"These technologies should be in place to empower citizens, not to repress them," he said, announcing new asset freezes and visa restrictions against Syrian and Iranian agencies as well as those helping them access surveillance used to plan violence.

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Obama, a Democrat, is under election-year pressure to do more to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and stop Syrian President Bashar Assad from waging attacks that have killed more than 9,000 people over the past year.

"We will keep increasing the pressure for the diplomatic effort to further isolate Assad and his regime," he told the audience of about 250 people, including Holocaust survivors, government officials and diplomats.

But Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, in pointed remarks introducing the president, warned it may be "almost too late" to stop their abuses.

Obama, who is up for re-election on Nov. 6, stressed that Washington was committed to keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon - a major worry of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as many Jewish voters in the United States.

"When faced with a regime that threatens global security and denies the Holocaust and threatens to destroy Israel, the United States will do everything in our power to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon," he said.

'Preventive measures'
Holocaust survivor and author Wiesel flagged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's past comments casting doubt on the World War II mass killings of Jews as a reason to take the nuclear threat seriously.

"In this place we may ask, "Have we learned anything?" Wiesel said in the museum that details the rise of Nazi Germany and depicts scenes from concentration camps, including the hair, shoes and suitcases of victims.

"How is it Assad is still in power? How is it that the Holocaust's number one denier, Ahmadinejad, is still a president?" he said. "We must know that when evil has power it is almost too late. Preventive measures are important. We must use those measures to prevent another catastrophe."

Mitt Romney, the most likely Republican nominee for the White House race, has criticized Obama's approach to Tehran as too conciliatory and said he would not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon if he were elected president.

The executive order that Obama signed on Sunday freezes U.S. assets linked to those aiding satellite, computer and phone network monitoring in Syria as well as Iran, where Washington believes authorities are targeting opposition members.

It cites the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate, the Syrian cell phone company Syriatel, Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's Law Enforcement Forces and the Iranian Internet provider Datak Telecom, as well as a number of individuals.

Only Datak wasn't already subject to U.S. sanctions. According to the Treasury Department, Datak collaborated with the Iranian government to monitor and track Internet users, and provided information on individuals who tried to circumvent the government's blocks on Internet content.

In a video message to Iranians last month to mark the Persian New Year, Obama accused Iran of imposing an "electronic curtain" on its citizens and promised new U.S. steps aimed at helping ease the Iranian people's access to the Internet and social media.

'Organized crimes'
The new measures could later be broadened to include other agencies, companies and individuals.

Reuters reported in March that China's ZTE Corp. sold Iran's largest telecoms provider, Telecommunication Co. of Iran (TCI), a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring landline, mobile and Internet communications as part of a contract signed in December 2010. ZTE said it would curtail its business in Iran.

George Lopez, a University of Notre Dame peace studies professor, said the measures announced on Monday were a step toward disrupting the Iranian and Syrian governments' ability to plan and wage attacks that could be replicated elsewhere.

"Because mass atrocities are organized crimes, crippling the means to organize and sustain them — money, communications networks, and other resources — can disrupt their execution," he said in response to the president's announcement.

Obama has been emphasizing the potential for a diplomatic resolution to Iranian and Syrian crises while trying to add pressure on both governments through tightened sanctions. A large part of his 2008 election platform was a promise to wind down U.S. military engagement overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Monday, he also promised to extend the presence of U.S. military advisers in Central Africa helping Uganda and its neighbors pursue the Lord's Resistance Army, and said he would give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a Polish Catholic who worked as an emissary during the Second World War.

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Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

The number of pirate attacks in West African waters is increasing alarmingly, according to a new report.

The International Maritime Bureau’s global piracy report said there were 102 incidents worldwide in the first three months of 2012; four people were killed, 212 crew members were taken hostage and 11 vessels were hijacked.

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A further 45 vessels were boarded, there were 32 attempted attacks and 14 vessels were fired on.

A statement emailed to journalists from the International Chamber of Commerce – the International Maritime Bureau is part of its anti-crime arm – said there had been a dangerous rise in the number of attacks off Nigeria and other West African countries.

“Nigerian piracy is increasing in incidence and extending in range,” Pottengal Mukundan, director of the IMB Piracy Reporting Center, said in the statement.

“At least six of the 11 reported incidents in Nigeria occurred at distances greater than 70 nautical miles from the coast, which suggests that fishing vessels are being used as motherships to attack shipping further afield,” he added.

High levels of violence
The statement said there had been 10 reports of piracy from Nigeria in the first quarter of the year, the same as reported for the whole of 2011. A further attack in neighboring Benin was also attributed to Nigerian pirates.

It said two crew members were killed when their vessel was boarded 110 nautical miles off Nigeria.

However, Somalia continued to see the most incidents, with 43 attacks resulting in nine vessels being hijacked. This was down from the first quarter of 2011, when 97 incidents and 16 hijackings were reported.

Video: An intimate look at the search for pirates

“While the number of reported incidents in Nigeria is still less than Somalia, and hijacked vessels are under control of the pirates for days rather than months, the level of violence against crew is dangerously high,” Mukundan said.

The International Chamber of Commerce runs a global map of piracy attacks that is updated live.

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An all-white, and possibly albino, killer whale has been spotted in seas off eastern Russia, scientists reported Monday, dubbing the adult male "Iceberg."

"In many ways, Iceberg is a symbol of all that is pure, wild and extraordinarily exciting about what is out there in the ocean waiting to be discovered," Erich Hoyt, co-director of the Far East Russia Orca Project, said in a statement. "The challenge is to keep the ocean healthy so that such surprises are always possible."

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The researchers, who are studying killer whales in an area that's also seen as an opportunity for oil development, say Iceberg is the first adult, all-white male orca to have been documented.

Young, all-white orcas have been seen before -- including two in Iceberg's pod -- but none has ever been recorded living into adulthood.

Iceberg and his pod of 12 relatives were first spotted off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.

"We have no genetic data" on Iceberg's pod, Hoyt wrote in a blog post Sunday, "but we are hoping to meet them again in summer 2012 and learn more about the phenomenon of white whales, why they occur, what it means and whether Iceberg is a true albino — perhaps we can catch a glimpse of a pink eye — or 'just' one of the most beautiful orcas anyone has ever seen."

The area where Iceberg was first seen is inside Russia's largest marine reserve and the scientists hope it will be expanded to create a "network of reserves."

"Such a call is in response to local overfishing in some areas, and increased oil and gas exploration, which poses a threat to marine mammals from increasing noise levels, ship traffic and potential oil spills," the scientists stated. "As noise levels increase, the ability of whales to communicate over long distances may be compromised."

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DUBAI - Iran was investigating a suspected cyber attack on its main oil export terminal and on the Oil Ministry itself, Iranian industry sources said on Monday. 

A virus was detected inside the control systems of Kharg Island, the country's largest crude oil export facility, but the terminal remained operational, a source at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) told Reuters. 

Officials said the attack had not corrupted vital information at NIOC, although it had damaged general information, an oil ministry official told the semi-official Fars news agency, which has some ties to the government. 

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"This cyber attack has not damaged the main data of the oil ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) since the general servers are separate from the main servers, even their cables are not linked to each other and are not linked to internet service," Alireza Nikzad told the agency.

Obama announces new sanctions on Iran, Syria in Holocaust museum speech

The virus, which is likely to be compared to the Stuxnet computer worm which reportedly affected Iranian nuclear facilities in 2009-10, struck late on Sunday, Reuters reported. 

It hit the internet and communications systems of Iran's Oil Ministry and of its national oil company, the Mehr news agency -- which calls itself "private and non-official media"-- reported. Computer systems controlling a number of Iran's other oil facilities have been disconnected from the Internet as a precaution, the agency added. 

Hamdullah Mohammadnejad, the head of civil defense at the oil ministry, was reported as saying Iranian authorities had set up a crisis unit and were working out how to neutralize the attacks. 

IT systems at the oil ministry and at the national oil company were also disconnected to prevent the spread of any virus, the Mehr news agency said. 

Iran says it is building a copy of downed US spy drone

The oil ministry's own media network, Shana, quoted a spokesman as saying no major damage had been sustained. 

Iran's nuclear program is thought to be the principal target of the Stuxnet worm -- discovered in 2010 -- the first virus believed to have been specifically designed to subvert industrial systems. 

Iranian protester shouts into President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's face

U.S.-based think-tank, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), said that in late 2009 or early 2010 about 1,000 centrifuges -- machines used to refine uranium - out of the 9,000 used at Iran's Natanz enrichment plant, had been knocked out by the virus -- not enough to seriously harm its operations. 

Iran also identified damage inflicted by a similar virus aimed at disrupting industrial processes, called Duqu. Experts say Duqu appears to be designed to gather data to make it easier to launch future attacks and that very few organizations could have written such complex programs. 

Most of the world's oil facilities are controlled by computers, but some processes can be controlled manually when necessary. A shipping source with knowledge of operations at Kharg Island said that NIOC has been prevented from sending out the crude loading program at the terminal.   

Reuters contributed to this report. 

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James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.

Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.

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He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”

However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far."

The new book, due to be published next year, will be the third in a trilogy, following his earlier works, “Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity,” and “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can.”

The new book will discuss how humanity can change the way it acts in order to help regulate the Earth’s natural systems, performing a role similar to the harmonious one played by plants when they absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

Climate's 'usual tricks'
It will also reflect his new opinion that global warming has not occurred as he had expected.

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.

He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future.

In 2007, Time magazine named Lovelock as one of 13 leaders and visionaries in an article on “Heroes of the Environment,” which also included Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev and Robert Redford.

“Jim Lovelock has no university, no research institute, no students. His almost unparalleled influence in environmental science is based instead on a particular way of seeing things,” Oliver Morton, of the journal Nature wrote in Time. “Humble, stubborn, charming, visionary, proud and generous, his ideas about Gaia have started a change in the conception of biology that may serve as a vital complement to the revolution that brought us the structures of DNA and proteins and the genetic code.”

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Lovelock also won the U.K.’s Geological Society’s Wollaston Medal in 2006. In a posting on its website, the society said it was “rare to be able to say that the recipient has opened up a whole new field of Earth science study” – referring to the Gaia theory of the planet as single complex system.

However Lovelock, who works alone at his home in Devon, England, has fallen out with the green movement in the past, particularly after saying countries should build nuclear power stations to help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by coal and oil.

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Asked if he was now a climate skeptic, Lovelock told msnbc.com: “It depends what you mean by a skeptic. I’m not a denier.”

He said human-caused carbon dioxide emissions were driving an increase in the global temperature, but added that the effect of the oceans was not well enough understood and could have a key role.

“It (the sea) could make all the difference between a hot age and an ice age,” he said.

He said he still thought that climate change was happening, but that its effects would be felt farther in the future than he previously thought.

“We will have global warming, but it’s been deferred a bit,” Lovelock said.

'I made a mistake'
As “an independent and a loner,” he said he did not mind saying “All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.

Lovelock -- who has previously worked with NASA and discovered the presence of harmful chemicals (CFCs) in the atmosphere but not their effect on the ozone layer -- stressed that humanity should still “do our best to cut back on fossil fuel burning” and try to adapt to the coming changes.

Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the U.K.’s respected Met Office Hadley Centre, agreed Lovelock had been too alarmist with claims about people having to live in the Arctic by 2100.

And he also agreed with Lovelock that the rate of warming in recent years had been less than expected by the climate models.

However, Stott said this was a short-term trend that could be within the natural range of variation and it would need to continue for another 10 years or so before it could be considered evidence that something was missing from climate models.

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Stott said temperature records and other observations were “broadly speaking continuing to pan out” with what was expected.

He said there did need to be greater understanding of the effect of the oceans on the climate and added that air particles caused by pollution – which cool the Earth by reflecting the sun’s heat -- from rapidly developing countries like China could be having an effect.

On Lovelock, Stott said he had “a lot of respect” for him, saying “he’s had a lot of good ideas and interesting thoughts.”

“I like the fact he’s provocative and provokes people to think about these things,” Stott said.

Keya Chatterjee, international climate policy director of environmental campaign group WWF-US, said in a statement that it was "hard not to get overwhelmed and be defeatist" about the challenges facing the planet, but suggested alarmist talk did not help persuade people to act to reduce climate change.

"While the problem is becoming increasingly urgent, we’ve found that focusing on the most dire predictions does not resonate with the public, governments, or business. People tend to shut off when a problem does not seem solvable," she said.

"And that’s not the case with climate change because we can still avoid its worst impacts. We know that we already have all of the technologies needed to slow climate change down.  We only lack the political will to go up against vested interests," she added.

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According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading body on the subject, the world’s average temperature has risen by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900. By 2100, it predicts it will rise by another 2 to 11.5 degrees, depending upon the levels of greenhouse gases emitted.

Asked to give its latest position on climate change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a statement that observations collected by satellites, sensors on land, in the air and seas “continue to show that the average global surface temperature is rising.”

The statement said “the impacts of a changing climate” were already being felt around the globe, with “more frequent extreme weather events of certain types (heat waves, heavy rain events); changes in precipitation patterns … longer growing seasons; shifts in the ranges of plant and animal species; sea level rise; and decreases in snow, glacier and Arctic sea ice coverage.”

NOAA reports its data in monthly U.S. and global climate reports and annual State of the Climate reports.  

Its annual climate summary for 2011 said that the combined land and ocean surface temperature for the world was 0.92 degrees above the 20th century average of 57.0 degrees, making it the 35th consecutive year since 1976 that the yearly global temperature was above average.

“All 11 years of the 21st century so far (2001-2011) rank among the 13 warmest in the 132-year period of record. Only one year during the 20th century, 1998, was warmer than 2011,” it said.

In the interview, Lovelock said he would not take back a word of his seminal work “Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth,” published in 1979.

But of “Revenge of Gaia,” published in 2006, he said he had gone too far in describing what the warming Earth would see over the next century.

“I would be a little more cautious -- but then that would have spoilt the book,” he quipped.

 

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The Dutch government, one of the most vocal critics of European countries failing to rein in their budgets, quit Monday after failing to agree on a plan to bring its own deficit in line with European Union rules. 

The government information service announced Queen Beatrix had accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his Cabinet after a meeting in which Rutte told her talks on a new austerity package had failed over the weekend. 

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Rutte is to address parliament Tuesday to discuss interim measures to keep public finances in order and schedule new elections. No date for elections was immediately announced, but opposition lawmakers called for a vote as soon as possible. 

The Dutch government collapse came a day after the first round election victory of France's soft-on-austerity socialist candidate Francois Hollande. It calls into question whether austerity policies that are causing trauma in countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal can be enforced even in "core" European countries such as France — or the Netherlands, one of the few along with Germany to maintain an AAA credit rating. 

Rutte's hopes to clinch a deal to cut the target below the EU's 3 percent target evaporated on Saturday, when his most important political ally, populist euroskeptic Geert Wilders walked out of the talks, saying a slavish adherence to European rules was foolish and would harm the Dutch economy.

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That view is shared by some, such as the government's own Central Plan Bureau, and opposed by others, such as Dutch Central Bank President Klaas Knot. 

"We don't want our pensioners to suffer for the sake of the dictators in Brussels," Wilders said. 

Opposition lawmakers say they are prepared to work with Rutte to draw up a 2013 budget. 

However, Diederik Samsom, leader of the opposition Labor Party, signaled he would not insist on bringing the Dutch deficit back in line with EU norms next year. 

Although the Netherlands has relatively low levels of national debt, its economy is in recession and it is expected to post a deficit of 4.6 percent in 2012. 

The package Rutte had been negotiating with Wilders would have slashed foreign aid and hastened a planned increase in the retirement age to 66 from 65. 

Wilders, who is publishing a book in the U.S. next week about his struggle against Islam, said abruptly Saturday he could not support the package because it was unfriendly to the elderly. 

Ratings agency Fitch last week warned the Netherlands stands to lose its AAA credit rating depending on the outcome of the budget talks that failed Saturday. 

Central Bank President Knot has predicted Dutch interest rates will increase by around 1 percent if the country's rating is cut, making budget reform vital. 

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ROME – All we knew of Ruby was that she stole Silvio Berlusconi’s heart. But according to leaked telephone conversations published on Monday, she also took quite a lot of money from him to lie about their relationship.

Karima El-Marough, better known as “Ruby the Heart-Stealer,” is a Moroccan-born dancer who, according to prosecutors in Milan, had sex with the former Italian prime minister for money when she was still a minor. It’s a crime which could land Berlusconi in prison for up to three years. 

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So far El-Marough has denied having had sex with Berlusconi, although she did admit to having received thousands of euros from him. Berlusconi has claimed to have given money to her and other women as gifts to “help out,” but according to leaked telephone conversations between and her friends, that money was meant to buy her silence. 

In the wiretapped telephone conversations dating back to October 2010, when the scandal broke, El-Marough told a number of friends that Berlusconi asked her to act "crazy" and lie. In exchange, he would give her whatever she wanted.

According to the wire-tapped calls on Oct. 28, 2010, she told a friends: “Silvio called me to tell me he’ll give me as much money as I want, as long as I act like I am mentally unstable and a liar… as long as I don’t tell the truth. He told me ‘I’ll give you all the money you want…I’ll cover you in gold…just don’t say anything.’” 

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On the same day, El-Marough told a friend named Sergio that she had even set a specific price for her silence on the relationship with Berlusconi. 

“Through my lawyer I asked him for five million euro ($6.5 million) in exchange for me acting like I am crazy… a liar… He accepted,” she said, according to the transcripts.

When another friend asked her if she was afraid of being involved in such a high-profile scandal, Ruby seemed to acknowledge that she had actually hit the jackpot.

“No, I am not afraid. I will get a lot of money…fame…why should I be afraid?” she is heard saying on the phone.

What is certain is that she did gain fame. Since the scandal broke out, she has become a household name, even though she is better known as “Ruby the Heart-Stealer” than Karima El-Marough. She has since had a baby and appeared in a couple of small commercials.

Whether she was effectively paid to lie in order to protect Berlusconi is up to the prosecutors to prove. But the leaked phone conversations are so far the most damaging piece of evidence against the former Italian prime minister in a trial that has that could not only end his political career, but his life as a free man.

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KABUL, Afghanistan -- An American Congressional delegation met with opponents of the government of President Hamid Karzai over the weekend, further straining already-tense relations between Kabul and the Obama administration.

The Afghanistan National Front (ANF) is the most prominent of the groups to succeed the so-called Northern Alliance. It is led by the brother of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a Tajik leader who was slain by al-Qaida days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The U.S. and Northern Alliance later worked together to oust the Taliban.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall told NBC News that the U.S. delegation was led by Texas Republican Louie Gohmert. The names of other members of the delegation were not released. 

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"It is like (the U.S.) Ambassador going to Moscow and meeting with the opposition first," said NBC News correspondent Jim Maceda, who has reported on Afghanistan for more than 20 years. "It is an example of good intentions paving the way to hell."

The Northern Alliance, made-up largely of Tajiks and other non-Pashtun groups, opposed the Taliban for years and are struggling for more power under Karzai. Karzai, who also fought the Taliban, is Pashtun.  

"We understand that members of the U.S. Congress had a private meeting with former Northern Alliance political figures on April 22 in Kabul," the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement obtained by NBC News. "U.S. Embassy Kabul neither arranged nor participated in these meetings. The Members of Congress do not represent the State Department or any other part of the executive branch. Their presence and views at this privately arranged event do not reflect the view of the president or the administration."

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The embassy's statement followed news that Congressman Dana  Rohrabacher (R-Cal.), a fierce critic of of Karzai's government and the White House's policies in Afghanistan, was denied entry into the country over the weekend. 

Rohrabacher, the Republican chairman of the House foreign affairs subcommittee on oversight and investigation, was barred from entering Afghanistan from Dubai on Friday, the Guardian newspaper reported.

According to Rohrabacher's spokeswoman, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent a personal message from Karzai to the congressman saying he would not be welcome in Afghanistan and to cancel his visit, the newspaper said.

The U.S. delegation and the ANF issued a statement after the meeting condemning recent Taliban attacks and corruption, calling for a more decentralized form of government. 

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The ANF and the congressional delegation "call for a comprehensive intra-Afghan dialogue immediately with the support of [the] international community that would lead to the implementation of a parliamentary form of democracy with decentralization of executive power to the provinces with elected management."

The statement also called Rohrabacher "a great friend of the Afghan people" and condemned the fact he was "not permitted to enter Afghanistan because of his support for constitutional reform."

Msnbc.com's F. Brinley Bruton contributed to this report.

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