Al-Qaida threats have forced Britain and the United States to close their embassies in Yemen today amid increasing concern about the roots of terrorism in the Arabian peninsula in the wake of the Christmas Day bomb plot.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said the British embassy in the capital, Sana'a, was closed today "for security reasons" and a decision would be taken later as to whether it would reopen tomorrow.

A statement posted on the US embassy website said its bureau was closed due to "ongoing threats" from al-Qaida. It said the embassy sent warning last week to US citizens in Yemen urging them to be vigilant. A US embassy spokesman would not comment on whether there had been a specific threat.

Yemen has been under scrutiny since the failed attempt by the Nigerian-born Umar Abdulmutallab to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day. Abdulmutallab was trained in Yemen and yesterday Barack Obama said al-Qaida's branch there was behind the attempted attack.

Gordon Brown today confirmed that he and Obama had agreed to back a counterterrorism police unit in Yemen. In a statement, Downing Street said the unit was part of a plan to "intensify joint US-UK work to tackle the emerging terrorist threat from both Yemen and Somalia".

The US believes the official intelligence assessment of Iran's nuclear programme is wrong and Tehran is working on the design of a nuclear weapon, it was reported today.

Washington is seeking support for new sanctions against Iran at the UN security council following the expiry of a new year deadline, imposed by the US president, Barack Obama, for Tehran to respond to an offer of economic help and improved diplomatic relations in return for curbing its nuclear programme.

Washington is distancing itself from a controversial National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), produced by several US spy agencies in 2007, which suggested Iran had suspended work on weapons design four years earlier.

"After reviewing new documents that have leaked out of Iran and debriefing defectors lured to the west, Mr Obama's advisers say they believe the work on weapons design is continuing on a smaller scale - the same assessment reached by Britain, France, Germany and Israel," the New York Times reported.

The key sources of new intelligence are likely to include two recent Iranian defectors - Ali Reza Asgari, a Revolutionary Guards general who vanished in Istanbul in 2007, and Shahram Amiri, a leading Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Mecca last summer.

Mexican police have captured an alleged drug lord two weeks after his more powerful brother was killed in a shootout with troops.

Carlos Beltran Leyva was arrested in Culiacan, capital of the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, where he and several of his brothers allegedly started their gang.

Two weeks ago his brother Arturo, reputed head of the Beltran Leyva cartel, was killed in the central city of Cuernavaca. He was the highest-ranking cartel suspect to be killed or captured since the president, Felipe Calderón, deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and police three years ago to fight drug gangs.

Officials have previously described Carlos Beltran Leyva, 40, as a key member of the gang, but it was unclear whether he took over as chief after his brother died.

A third brother, Alfredo, was arrested in January 2008. At least one other, Mario, remains at large and is listed as one of Mexico's 24 most wanted drug lords, with a $2m reward offered for his capture. Carlos was not included on the list, although the public safety department said there had been a warrant for his arrest since 2008.

A senior commander of a Ugandan rebel group has been killed in Central African Republic, Ugandan officials have said. 

Brigadier Bok Abudema of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was killed in the town of Djema on Friday amid an ongoing operation against the group by Ugandan forces across several countries in the region.

Lieutenant Colonel Felix Kulayige, Uganda's defence and army spokesman, said Abudema was the only casualty of the raid that killed him but troops also recovered two women who had been with him.

Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi president, has come in for criticism from opposition groups over what they describe as his "weak response" to Iran's seizure of an oil well that Baghdad considers its own.  

Iranian soldiers seized the well in December and critics of al-Maliki say his "weak response" illustrated the prime minister's loyalty to his fellow Shia majority across the border in Iran.

Following decades of border disputes between the two countries. the Iraqi opposition is seeking to exploit the incident to its advantage ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for March.

A court in Egypt has ruled in favour of the government's decision to ban students from wearing the face veil (niqab) while taking university examinations.

But female students who had appealed the ban when it was originally imposed by the government last October have vowed to appeal the verdict.

The students said the ban on niqab infringed on their religious rights.

"We had never hoped to see such a verdict issued by our fair Egyptian judicial system. Our rights are being raped. What freedom would we have after this? Where is freedom in Egypt?," one student told Al Jazeera after Sunday's verdict.

National Hmong leaders in Fresno are asking President Barack Obama to intervene on behalf of 4,500 Hmong who were forcibly repatriated from Thailand to Laos this week.

In a letter to Obama, the Fresno-based Lao Veterans of America Institute, which calls itself the nation's largest Hmong and Lao veterans organization, accuses the Thai military of brutalizing refugees who objected to the repatriation.

Laos denied the U.N. immediate access to the refugees, saying Wednesday that it would "complicate" matters but that international observers could visit later, The Associated Press reported.

Thailand deported the Hmong on Monday in a massive 24-hour military operation, ignoring concerns by the U.N., the United States and others that the Hmong could face persecution by the Lao government, the AP reported.

Wangyee Vang, president of the Lao Veterans of America Institute, said refugees have called his organization by cell phone to describe the abuse and ask for help.

... Tohti is not a separatist or even a political dissident. He's a Communist Party member and a teacher at a top Chinese university who sees himself as a bridge between Hans and Uighurs.

<...>

Tohti is an animated speaker, more preacher than teacher. A slideshow running behind him in a continuous loop flashes images of Urumqi in the days after the riots: burned-out cars, police and soldiers patrolling the city, weeping Uighur women begging Chinese security forces for information about their detained relatives, angry Han marching in protest against the violence.

He uses the classroom to build ethnic pride.

<...>

In China, these are topics not usually talked about in public. Hearing them in class is exhilarating for young Uighurs who say discrimination is a daily fact of life.

<...>

Instead, he urges students to use Chinese law to protect themselves, and to avoid overseas Uighur rights activists.

"I tell them, 'You need to engage with the Han in Beijing. Stop looking to the West," Tohti said with a barking laugh during an interview in his Beijing apartment. "The West isn't going to send troops to fight a war against China for you.'"

Yet officials lump him together with the overseas activists and accuse him of inciting the July riots. ...

TOKYO - Japan's prime minister said Monday he will press for more equal ties with Washington this year, the 50th anniversary of a joint security treaty that grants many special privileges to U.S. troops stationed in the country.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, in a New Year's speech shown live on national television, said he hopes the alliance will evolve to become more open and candid. It is important "for both sides to be able to firmly say what needs to be said, and to increase the relationship of trust," he said.

Under a security pact signed in 1960, U.S. armed forces are allowed broad use of Japanese land and facilities, and currently some 47,000 American troops are stationed in Japan. The U.S. is obliged to respond to attacks on Japan and protects the country under its nuclear umbrella.

More than half those troops are stationed in the southern island of Okinawa, where many residents complain about noise, pollution and crime linked to the bases.

U.S.-Japan ties have become strained since Hatoyama took office in September over the relocation of Futenma U.S. Marine airfield on Okinawa, as part of a broader reorganization agreed in 2006. The plan calls for 8,000 Marines to be transferred to the U.S. territory of Guam and for Futenma's facilities to be moved to a northern part of Okinawa.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Started at the height of the economic boom and built by some 12,000 laborers, the world's tallest building will open on Monday in Dubai as the glitzy emirate seeks to rekindle optimism after its financial crisis.

Burj Dubai, whose opening has been delayed twice since construction began in 2004, will mark another milestone for the deeply indebted emirate with a penchant for seeking new records.

In June 2006, the U.S. banned CPMIEC and three other Chinese companies from conducting business in the U.S., citing their alleged sales of missile technology to Iran in defiance of previous sanctions. Two months later, a shipment of oil-drainage tanks from Shanghai landed at the port of Tacoma, Wash., bound for a New York City firm, American Forge & Foundry Inc. The shipper: a unit of CPMIEC, according to a shipping record known as a bill of lading.

U.S. enforcement officials say it can be difficult for U.S. companies to avoid doing business with foreign companies and individuals under sanction. Problems with translating company names can be an issue, they say. Sanctioned companies also have proved adept at creating aliases or subsidiary shell companies to mask their ownership, they say.

"To the extent that a U.S. institution does process a transaction for a designated entity, those transactions tend to be inadvertent and are corrected quickly upon detection," says the OFAC's Mr. Szubin.

The TSA said anyone traveling from or though nations regarded as state sponsors of terrorism -- as well as "other countries of interest" -- will be required to undergo enhanced screening. The TSA said those techniques include full-body pat-downs, carry-on bag searches, full-body scanning and explosive detection technology.

[...]

The State Department lists Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria as state sponsors of terrorism.