Around the world

Iran demands end to U.N. meddling

VIENNA — Iran demanded an end to Security Council "interference" in an offer made public Tuesday in exchange for clearing up suspicions about its disputed nuclear activities — an apparent attempt to head off new U.N sanctions over its refusal to stop uranium enrichment.

The overture, contained in a document made available to The Associated Press, came as the five permanent council members deliberated a new resolution aiming to tighten up sanctions against Iran for its nuclear defiance.

The document said Iran was ready to "negotiate . . . for the resolution of outstanding issues with the IAEA . . . without the interference of the United Nation(s) Security Council."

Signed by Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's chief representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the letter also said the country was ready to "enter a constructive ... negotiation."

iran

Top official abroad, reported missing

TEHRAN — Iran said Tuesday its former deputy defense minister was missing while on a private trip to neighboring Turkey, and its top police chief accused Western intelligence services of possibly kidnapping him.

Ali Reza Asghari, a retired general in the elite Revolutionary Guards and a former deputy defense minister, had arrived in Turkey on a private visit from Damascus, Syria, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Tuesday.

Iran's top police chief, Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghaddam, said Iran was investigating through the Turkish police.

"It is likely that Asghari has been abducted by the Western intelligence services," IRNA quoted the Iranian police general as saying.

israel

Palestinian actions worsen fiscal crisis

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian Authority faces a fiscal crisis that could threaten its existence, in part because it keeps expanding the public payroll despite sharply reduced revenues, the World Bank said in a report released today.

The Palestinian economy declined in 2006 from an already low level, and the per capita gross domestic product dropped by at least 8 percent, said the report.

The decline coincides with an international boycott of the Islamic militant group Hamas, which came to power a year ago. Since then, foreign aid has been redirected to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas or disbursed as direct salary or welfare payments to Palestinians.

The level of aid has declined from about $1 billion in 2005 to more than $700 million in 2006. Most development programs have been cut, and the bulk of the money now goes to budget support. About 25 percent of the Palestinian labor force is unemployed, the report said.

russia

2 Americans treated for severe poisoning

MOSCOW — An American doctor and her daughter were being treated in a Moscow hospital on Tuesday after being poisoned late last month with thallium, a highly toxic element.

Both women, who emigrated from the Soviet Union in the 1980s but recently returned to Russia for a vacation, were severely sickened but their lives are not in danger, medical officials here said.

"They have positive dynamics, and their condition is improving," said Dr. Viktor M. Kaznacheyev, chief physician at the Sklifosovsky Clinic here. The women fell ill on Feb. 24.

Dr. Marina Kovalevsky, 49, and her daughter, Yana, 26, of Studio City, Calif., "were in a serious condition when they were delivered here," he added.

Kovalevsky is an internal medicine specialist in private practice in West Hollywood, Calif., and has had admitting privileges at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center since 1999, a spokeswoman for the hospital said. She was educated in the 1970s in Kemerovo, an industrial and coal-mining region in southern Siberia.