(OSLO, Norway) — Al Gore and the U.N. climate panel's chief scientist accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday for sounding the alarm over global warming and spreading awareness on how to counteract it.

Earlier, Gore said he believes the next U.S. president will shift the country's course on climate change and engage in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

"The new president, whichever party wins the election, is likely to have to change the position on this climate crisis," Gore said. "I do believe the U.S., soon, is to have a more constructive role."

The former U.S. vice president's remarks come a day after he said reducing carbon dioxide emissions is essential to the "survival of our civilization" — and reiterated he had no plans to run for president.

At a joint news conference with the U.N.'s chief climate scientist, Gore called for grassroots movements worldwide to push political leaders into action to curb the emissions that contributed to global warming.

"It is a question of the survival of our civilization," Gore told reporters at the Nobel Institute in downtown Oslo on Sunday. "CO2 increases anywhere are a threat to the future of civilization everywhere.

The news conference and meetings with Norwegian leaders marked the start of three days of celebrations of the 2007 Nobel Peace laureates. The ceremony Monday will be followed by a parade and banquet in the winners' honor, and the traditional Nobel peace concert on Tuesday.

Asked whether he had made any final decision on whether to enter the U.S. presidential race, Gore said: "I have no plans to be a candidate." He said he did not expect to re-enter politics in the future "but I see no reason to rule it out entirely."

Gore spoke as world governments met in Bali, Indonesia, in hopes of hammering out a plan for a tougher treaty to replace the Kyoto climate agreement by 2012.

Gore, who earlier urged the countries to speed up the timetable for reducing emissions by two years, said he was optimistic about tougher measures partly because growing public awareness of global warming was spurring "the world's first people power movement" on climate change.

He said that could force political leaders to take action.

"They have to find some courage to resist the special interests, the special fears, the concern that often have wider influences than they should and instead respect the demands of the human future," Gore said.

This year's Nobel Peace Prize is part of that process, Gore said, because it "has already caused increased attention to the problem of moving along to solve the crisis of climate."

Pachauri warned that, in his opinion, data coming in after the panel concluded work on its latest assessment suggests that "the future could very well be far more dire than we believe it is today."

He said the world cannot hope that technology alone will counter the threat, but that people must be prepared to change to way they live.

"I don't think this means we have to go back to living in caves but lifestyle change means you have to be conscious of the impact of your actions," said Pachauri.

Asked by a Norwegian youth newspaper what young people could do, Gore said every effort helps.

"A lot of them you probably know already: Changing a light bulb," said Gore. "All these individual acts are important. They all help, but they won't solve the problem by themselves unless we have changes in the laws and in treaties."

The Nobel prizes are always presented on the December 10 anniversary of the death of their creator, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. The peace prize is presented in Oslo and the other prizes are handed out in Stockholm, Sweden.

"It's the basic right of self defense," said Guzman, a 23-year-old former Marine. "Here on campus, we don't have that right, that right of self defense."

Every state but Illinois and Wisconsin allows residents some form of concealed handgun carrying rights, with 36 states issuing permits to most everyone who meets licensing criteria. The precise standards vary from state to state, but most require an applicant to be at least 21 and to complete formal instruction on use of force.

Many states forbid license-holders from carrying weapons on school campuses, while in states where the decision is left to the universities, schools almost always prohibit it. Utah is the only state that expressly allows students to carry concealed weapons on campus.

College campuses are different from other public places where concealed weapons are allowed. Thousands of young adults are living in close quarters, facing heavy academic and social pressure — including experimenting with drugs and alcohol — in their first years away from home.

W. Gerald Massengill, the chairman of the independent panel that investigated the Virginia Tech shootings, said those concerns outweigh the argument that gun-carrying students could have reduced the number of fatalities inflicted by someone like Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho.

"I'm a strong supporter of the Second Amendment," said Massengill, a former head of the Virginia state police. "But our society has changed, and there are some environments where common sense tells us that it's just not a good idea to have guns available."

His view is echoed by Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, who says campus safety concerns cannot be addressed by adding more guns to campuses.

"If there's more we need to do, we certainly need to do that, but introducing random access to firearms is not the solution," said Hamm. "You have more victims, not fewer victims."

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus gathered momentum after the April killings at Virginia Tech, where the gunman shot 32 people dead before killing himself.

With the help of the social networking Web site Facebook, the group mushroomed and organized its first nationwide protest in October. The group says it is not affiliated with the National Rifle Association, a political party or any other organization.

Like the students at TSU-San Marcos who were pushing Monday for a student government resolution on the issue, students at more than 110 colleges and universities went to class wearing empty holsters, said Scott Lewis, the national group's spokesman.

"We're not proposing to arm every student. We're not proposing that every freshmen get a handbook and a Glock," he said.

But he said students who are licensed to carry concealed firearms to movie theaters, public parks and other places should be allowed to take them on campus as well.

Candace Soya, a 20-year-old student at TSU-San Marcos, said she fears chaotic shootouts. If someone decided to open fire on the tree-lined quad in the middle of her campus, armed students would likely make matters worse, she said.

"It's not a situation where you can fight fire with fire," Soya said.

But advocates pushing for the campus concealed carry right say it's not just incidents like the one at Virginia Tech that create concern.

Campuses in higher-crime urban neighborhoods also pose risks for students, said Michael Flitcraft, a 23-year-old mechanical engineering student at the University of Cincinnati.

He argues, like most gun rights advocates, that weapons-free regulations only deter law-abiding students, not thugs or mentally ill shooters.

"Laws only affect the people who voluntarily abide by them," Flitcraft said.

(BEIJING)—Beijing on Monday attacked a U.S. congressional panel's warning about Chinese spying, calling it "brazen interference" in China's internal affairs.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao, in a statement posted on the ministry's Web site, said the report "ignores the fact of China's progress in the areas of politics, economics, and society, is rooted in prejudice, and brazenly interferes in China's internal affairs."

"We have already raised serious representations with the U.S. side expressing our resolute opposition," Liu said.

China's response was typical in that it routinely denies any spying and almost never allows such accusations to go unanswered.

The commission's report came at a time when trade tensions are more raw than usual over America's yawning trade deficit with China, which rose 12 percent last month to $15.7 billion on total two-way trade of $26.7 billion.

China's economic policies create a trade relationship that is "severely out of balance" in China's favor, said the commission, which Congress set up in 2000 to investigate and report on U.S.-China issues.

Carolyn Bartholomew, the commission's chairwoman, told reporters that "China's interest in moving toward a free market economy is not just stalling but is actually now reversing course."

Liu's statement called the commission's report a "smear attack" aimed at misleading public opinion toward China.

(GUIYU, China) — The air smells acrid from the squat gas burners that sit outside homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.

China now produces more than 1 million tons of e-waste each year, said Jamie Choi, a toxics campaigner with Greenpeace China in Beijing. That adds up to roughly 5 million television sets, 4 million fridges, 5 million washing machines, 10 million mobile phones and 5 million personal computers, according to Choi.

"Most e-waste in China comes from overseas, but the amount of domestic e-waste is on the rise," he said.

This ugly business is driven by pure economics. For the West, where safety rules drive up the cost of disposal, it's as much as 10 times cheaper to export the waste to developing countries. In China, poor migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks to earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.

International agreements and European regulations have made a dent in the export of old electronics to China, but loopholes — and sometimes bribes — allow many to skirt the requirements. And only a sliver of the electronics sold get returned to manufacturers such as Dell and Hewlett Packard for safe recycling.

Upwards of 90 percent ends up in dumps that observe no environmental standards, where shredders, open fires, acid baths and broilers are used to recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the nation's skies and rivers.

Accurate figures about the shady and unregulated trade are hard to come by. However, experts agree that it is overwhelmingly a problem of the developing world. They estimate about 70 percent of the 20-50 million tons of electronic waste produced globally each year is dumped in China, with most of the rest going to India and poor African nations.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it is ten times cheaper to export e-waste than to dispose of it at home.

Imports slip into China despite a Chinese ban and Beijing's ratification of the Basel Convention, an international agreement that outlaws the trade. Industry monitor Ted Smith said one U.S. exporter told him all that was needed to get shipments past Chinese customs officials was a crisp $100 bill taped to the inside of each container.

"The central government is well aware of the problems but has been unable or unwilling to really address it," said Smith, senior strategist with the California-based Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, which focuses on the electronics industry.

The European Union bans such exports, but Smith and others say smuggling is rife, largely due to the lack of measures to punish rule breakers. China, meanwhile, allows the import of plastic waste and scrap metal, which many recyclers use as an excuse to send old electronics there.

And though U.S. states increasingly require that electronics be sent to collection and recycling centers, even from those centers, American firms can send the e-waste abroad legally because Congress hasn't ratified the Basel Convention.

The results are visible on the streets of Guiyu, where the e-waste industry employs an estimated 150,000 people. Shipping containers of computer parts, old video games, computer screens, cell phones and electronics of all kinds, from ancient to nearly new, are dumped onto the streets and sorted for dismantling and melting.

Valuable metals such as copper, gold, and silver are removed through melting and acid baths, while steel is torn out for scrap and plastic is ground into pellets for other use.

This is big business for those who control the trade. Luxury sedans are parked in front of elaborate mansions in downtown Guiyu, adorned with fancy names such as "Hall of Southernly Peace."

Many of those who do the dirty work are migrants from poorer parts of China, too desperate or uninformed to care about the health risks.

In the town of Nanyang, a few minutes drive from Guiyu, a middle-aged couple from the inland province of Hunan sorts wiring in a mud-floored shack. Such work, including melting down motherboards, earns them about $100 per month, said the husband, who answered reluctantly and wouldn't give his name.

Many houses double as smelter and home. Gas burners shaped like blacksmith's forges squat beside the front doors, their flues rising several stories to try to dissipate the toxic smoke.

Nonetheless, a visitor soon develops a throbbing headache and metallic taste in the mouth. The groundwater has long been too polluted for human consumption. The amount of lead in the river sediment is double European safety levels, according to the Basel Action Network, an environmental group.

Yet, aside from trucking in drinking water, the health risks seem largely ignored. Fish are still raised in local ponds, and piles of ash and plastic waste sit beside rice paddies and dikes holding in the area's main Lianjiang river.

Chemicals, including mercury, fluorine, barium, chromium, and cobalt, that either leach from the waste or are used in processing, are blamed for skin rashes and respiratory problems. Contamination can take decades to dissipate, experts say, and long-term health effects can include kidney and nervous system damage, weakening of the immune system and cancer.

"Of course, recycling is more environmentally sound," said Wu Song, a former local university student who has studied the area. "But I wouldn't really call what's happening here recycling."

Those who control the business in Guiyu are hostile to outside scrutiny. Reporters visiting the area with a Greenpeace volunteer were trailed by tough-looking youths who notified local police, leading to a six-hour detention for questioning.

Government departments from the provincial to township levels refused to answer questions. The central government's Environmental Protection Agency did not reply to faxed questions.

Guiyu faces growing competition from other cities, notably Taizhou, about 450 miles up the coast in Zhejiang province. Meanwhile, collection yards have sprung up on the fringes of most major cities. The owners sell what they can to recyclers — most of them unregulated — and simply dump the rest.

Efforts to recycle e-waste safely in China have struggled. Few people bring in waste, because the illegal operators pay more.

"We're not even breaking even," said Gao Jian, marketing director of New World Solid Waste in the northeastern city of Qingdao. "These guys pay more because they don't need expensive equipment, but their methods are really dangerous."

The city of Shanghai opened a dedicated e-waste handling center last year, but most residents and companies prefer the "guerrilla" junkers who ride through neighborhoods on flatbed tricycles ringing bells to attract customers, said Yu Jinbiao of the Shanghai Electronic Products Repair Service Association, a government-backed industry federation.

"Those guerrillas are convenient and offer a good price," Yu said, "so there is a big market for them."

(WASHINGTON) — The number of new cars considered the safest by the insurance industry nearly tripled in the past year, helped by automakers' push to make certain safety equipment more widely available.

The institute requires new cars and trucks to have electronic stability control, or ESC, to qualify for the award. Many auto companies are putting the anti-rollover technology into their fleets ahead of a government requirement for the systems by the 2012 model year. "Vehicles should be designed to provide good occupant protection when crashes occur, but now with ESC we have the possibility of preventing many crashes altogether," said Adrian Lund, the institute's president.

Lund cited studies that have estimated that as many as 10,000 fatal crashes could be avoided annually if all vehicles had the technology.

Ford was represented on the list by the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable passenger cars with optional ESC, and the Ford Edge, Ford Taurus X and Lincoln MKX midsize sport utility vehicles. The Volvo S80, C70 midsize convertible and XC90 SUV, part of Ford's Volvo unit, made the list.

Ford has said previously that it will put stability control on its entire lineup by the end of 2009.

Honda and its Acura unit had seven vehicles on the list: the Honda Accord, Odyssey, Pilot, CR-V and Element, and the Acura MDX and RDX SUVs. Honda has had stability control on all SUVs, pickups and minivans since the 2007 model year and the technology is now standard on the Accord.

Electronic stability control senses when a driver may lose control of the vehicle and automatically applies brakes to individual wheels to help keep it stable and avoid a rollover. The technology helps motorists avoid skidding across icy or slick roads or keep control of their car when swerving to avoid an unexpected object in the road.

Subaru and Hyundai Motor Co. both had four vehicles on the list: the Subaru Legacy and Impreza with optional ESC, Subaru Tribeca and Forester with ESC; the Hyundai Entourage, and the Hyundai Santa Fe and Veracruz built after August 2007. Kia, a subsidiary of Hyundai, had the Sedona minivan on the list.

Pickup trucks were eligible to win for the first time this year because the institute conducted side-impact tests on many models. The Toyota Tundra, which has standard stability control and side air bags, was the first pickup truck to receive the IIHS designation.

Toyota Motor Co. also had the Highlander SUV on the list, while Volkswagen AG's Audi subsidiary was represented by the A3, A4 and A6 passenger cars.

The institute said Toyota could have had 10 more vehicles on the list and Volkswagen could have added four if they had improved seat and head restraint designs, important in protecting against whiplash injuries in rear-end crashes.

Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong said its 2008 vehicles have active headrests, which move closer to the backs of a motorist's head in rear-end crashes. Kwong said it provides a "great level of safety for the customer in the real world." A message was left with a Volkswagen spokesman.

Other vehicles to make the list included: Saab 9-3, BMW X3 and X5, Mercedes M Class, and the Saturn Vue built after December 2007.

The institute said the awards help consumers compare vehicles without having to review results from multiple tests.

(BEIJING) — China's safety watchdog confirmed Saturday that toy beads recalled in the United States and Australia after sickening children contain a substance that can turn into the "date-rape" drug after ingested.

Millions of units of the popular toys, which are sold as Aqua Dots in the United States and as Bindeez in Australia, were recalled in those countries as well as Britain, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere this past week after children began falling sick from swallowing the toy's bead-like parts.

The recall is the latest in a slew of product quality scandals that has tarnished China's image as an exporter of reliable goods. The government has tried to shore up the country's reputation by increasing inspections, selectively punishing companies and launching a publicity campaign to boost quality.

The toys are manufactured for Australia-based Moose Enterprises, and production was outsourced to Wangqi by a Hong Kong agent, the safety watchdog said. It did not identify the Hong Kong company.

"The Shenzhen factory started to produce the bead toys after its trial products provided to the agent received no objection," the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

At least nine children in the U.S. and three in Australia have fallen sick.

A man identifying himself as Mr. Liang who answered the phone at Wangqi confirmed the company made toys but said he did not know if the toys were the same ones in the recalls. Liang said the company's managers were not available to comment.

The Chinese government has already suspended exports of the toys, the safety watchdog said.

The watchdog said it asked the United States for information on the medical problems the children suffered because of the toys so that it can carry out more tests.

Companies worldwide have increasingly outsourced manufacturing, often choosing Chinese factories for their cost and quality. But heated competition among factories and the rising cost of labor, land and fuel have sometimes put pressure on profits, causing some producers to cut corners.

In the latest case, the Aqua Dots or Bindeez were supposed to have been coated with nontoxic 1,5-pentanediol, a chemical commonly used in computer printer ink. But that chemical generally sells for three or four times the price of the toxic compound found on the tainted toys, 1,4-butanediol.

(TUUSULA, Finland) — An 18-year-old student opened fire in a Finnish high school Wednesday, killing seven students and the principal before turning the gun on himself, police said.

The attack at Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki, shocked the Nordic nation, where gun ownership is fairly common by European standards but deadly shootings are rare.

Finnish media reported that in 1989 a 14-year-old boy shot and killed two students, apparently for teasing him.

Police said at a news conference after the attack that the gunman in Wednesday's attack shot the victims — five boys, two girls and the female principal — with a .22-caliber pistol. About a dozen other people were injured as they tried to escape the school, police said.

"He was from an ordinary family," police chief Matti Tohkanen said about the gunman, who belonged to a gun club and got a license for the pistol Oct. 19. He did not have a previous criminal record, he said.

Finnish media said the shooter revealed his plans in a YouTube posting before the attack.

The video, titled "Jokela High School Massacre," showed a picture of a building by a lake that appeared to be the high school, along with two photos of a young man holding a handgun. The person who posted the video was identified in the user profile as an 18-year-old man from Finland. The posting was later removed.

The profile contained a text calling for a "revolution against the system."

Another YouTube video clip showed a young man clad in a dark jacket loading a clip into a handgun and firing several shots at an apple placed on the ground in a forested area. He smiled and waved to the camera at the end of the clip.

A third clip showed photos of what appeared to be same man posing with a gun and wearing a T-shirt with the text "Humanity is overrated."

Police said they would investigate any possible connection the gunman might have had to the video.

Terhi Vayrynen, 17, a student at the school told The Associated Press that her brother Henri Vayrynen, 13, and his classmates had witnessed the shooting of the principal outside the school through the classroom window.

She said the gunman then came into Henri Vayrynen's class shouting: "Revolution! Smash everything!"

When no one did anything, he shot the TV and the windows of the class room but did not fire at the students. The he ran out and down the corridor, Terhi Vayrynen said.

Kim Kiuru, a teacher at the school, said the principal announced over the public address system just before noon that all students should remain in their classrooms.

"After that I saw the gunman running with what appeared to be a small-caliber handgun in his hand through the doors toward me after which I escaped to the corridor downstairs and ran in the opposite direction," Kiuru told reporters.

Kiuru said he saw a woman's body as he fled the building.

"Then my pupils shouted at me out of the windows to ask what they should do and I told them to jump out of the windows ... and all my pupils were saved," Kiuru said.

More than 400 students, from 12 to 18, were enrolled at Jokela, officials said.

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen described the situation as "extremely tragic," and declared Thursday a day of national mourning with flags to be flown half-staff.

Tuesday, Sep. 11, 2007 By AP/CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

(BEIJING) — China's top cop said terrorism is the biggest threat at its Olympic Games, and a leading terror expert warned Tuesday that Beijing faces a long-term threat from an Islamic separatist group in its far west.

In remarks appearing on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang said China would seek closer cooperation with other nations in dealing with the threat.

"Although the general security situation for the Beijing Olympics remains stable, we still face the challenges of terrorism, separatism and extremism," Zhou was quoted by the state-run China Daily newspaper as saying.

"Terrorism in particular poses the biggest threat," Zhou told a security conference in Beijing on Monday, the paper said.

Safeguarding the Olympics has been one of the biggest costs and concerns for cities hosting the games in recent years. Greek officials spent a record $1.4 billion on security for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Experts say the terrorist threat to the Aug. 8-24, 2008, Olympics is relatively low, but they warn that Beijing faces a growing threat from Islamic separatists among the Uighur population in the western region of Xinjiang.

However, only one or two terrorist groups are capable of attacks in northeast Asia, and their ability to operate within China's tightly controlled society is very limited, said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside al-Qaida — Global Network of Terror."

"The threat (to the Beijing Olympics) is medium to low. The threat from the outside is very low," said Gunaratna, who is based in Singapore.

He warned, however, that China's counterterrorism capabilities remain relatively weak, especially in its understanding of groups based outside its borders. "I expect they'll improve a lot before the Olympics," he said.

China has not joined military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan, and has not so far been a target of al-Qaida or other Islamic terror groups.

It recently appointed a special envoy to focus on Middle Eastern conflicts, but Beijing's involvement in the region has mainly been limited to economic contacts and calls for a negotiated settlement to the Palestinian question.

Although Uighur separatists have launched occasional bombings and assassinations, the last serious incidents were a decade ago.

In a rare publicized action earlier this year, China said it raided a terror camp in Xinjiang run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, killing 18 militants it says had links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The Sept. 11 attacks helped dilute U.S. and other foreign criticisms of China's heavy-handed tactics toward ethnic separatists it accuses of terrorism.

However, Gunaratna said the ETIM remained dangerous and was developing stronger links with al-Qaida, changing it from an essentially Uighur nationalist group to one espousing a pan-Islamic ideology. ETIM trains in Pakistan's remote tribal areas and has been spreading its message on the Internet.

Gunaratna estimated the group represents the views of less than 1 percent of China's approximately 50 million Muslims. But he warned that China needed to avoid alienating mainstream Uighurs by improving education and job options and showing more sensitivity to their ethnic concerns.

Interpol said Monday it would help China with security by sending a "major events support team" to the Olympics that will have quick access to Interpol files on fingerprints, images and "wanted persons notices."

Interpol will also provide "threat assessments" on issues relating to Olympic security and international crime, the organization said.

Liu Jing, a vice minister for public security, told the meeting in Beijing that China hopes all 135 cities on the Olympic torch relay route will also help safeguard that event, the China Daily said. Liu was quoted as saying that some organizations and individuals were trying to politicize the games and planned to disrupt the relay.

In one indication of discord, Taiwanese media reported that China has insisted Taiwan's national flag and official emblem do not show up along a proposed 15-mile torch route in Taipei. China claims Taiwan as its territory, and objects to all symbols of sovereignty by the democratic, self-ruling island.

Mia Farrow, a U.N. goodwill ambassador, has labeled the Beijing Games the "genocide Olympics," and has launched her own torch relay through countries with histories of mass atrocities. The actress says China has impeded a solution to deadly ethnic conflicts in Sudan's Darfur region because of its oil interests in that country.

China has legitimate concerns over terrorism at the Olympics, but those are only one facet of its desire to avoid any embarrassment to a regime that has staked enormous prestige on staging successful games, said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Human Rights Watch.

(Baghdad) — Nine American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Monday, including eight who died in vehicle accidents that also claimed the lives of two detainees, the military said.

The deadliest of the vehicle accidents, in western Baghdad, killed seven Multi-National Division-Baghdad soldiers and wounded 11, and left two detainees dead and a third injured. The cause of the accident was under investigation, the military said.

In a separate accident, east of Baghdad, an American soldier was killed and two injured when their vehicle flipped and caught fire. A ninth soldier died of injuries sustained Sunday while on patrol in the Kirkuk area of northern Iraq.

(HSINCHU, Taiwan) — With a deafening roar, eight Mirage fighter jets shoot upward from the darkened runway at Taiwan's Hsinchu Air Force Base, armed with a deadly array of missiles and a mission to knock out incoming Chinese warplanes.

It's only a simulation, of course, but the tensions are always real, and lately have ratcheted up over an ambitious political gambit by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian that has rattled both China and the U.S., Taiwan's closest ally.

At issue is Chen's plan for a public referendum next year on Taiwan seeking entry to the United Nations. Beijing views the referendum as a direct challenge to its claim that Taiwan is part of China.

No one expects war anytime soon, but Chen's move worries U.S. officials enough that they have publicly criticized it. The United States is wary of getting dragged into a scrap between a democratic friend and its giant neighbor across the Taiwan Straits.

Chen's initiative is a "mistake," Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said last month. Seeming to support China's view, he said the referendum would be "a step towards ... a declaration of independence of Taiwan," and urged Taiwanese authorities to "behave in a responsible manner."

China hardly wants war either. That would cast a giant shadow over its economic leap forward and next summer's Beijing Olympics. But ignoring Chen would give new impetus to Taiwanese independence — a prospect Beijing abhors.

The controversy boils down to a name.

Taiwan has applied for U.N. membership before — more than a dozen times since it was expelled from the world body in 1971 when the China seat was transferred to Beijing. But except for a failed attempt this year, it always did so under its official name — the Republic of China.

That's what Gen. Chiang Kai-shek called the island when he and his Nationalist forces fled there in 1949 as Mao Zedong's Communists took control of China.

Mao and Chiang hated each other, but they agreed on one thing: There could only be one China. Chiang was no less vehement than the Communists in resisting any notion of an independent Taiwan. Many of those who laid the groundwork for Chen's Democratic Progressive Party once served in prison for advocating independence.

Now Chen wants the electorate's permission to apply for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan — a crucial difference because it implies a rejection of the "one China" concept.

The referendum would ask whether the territory should apply for U.N. membership as "Taiwan." The Mainland Affairs Council, which implements Taiwan's China policies, published a poll in August putting support at more than 70 percent.

Any name would be symbolic. The U.N. Security Council would have to approve Taiwan's membership, and China has a veto.

The "aim is to provoke conflicts from the two sides, cheat Taiwanese people to get more votes and realize plans of Taiwan independence," said Yang Yi, a spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office.

Yang's reference to votes reflects a widespread Taiwanese perception that Chen, although a longtime supporter of independence, is holding the referendum mainly because he thinks it's a huge vote-getter.

The referendum is expected to take place during elections to choose Chen's successor in March, and it puts the main opposition Nationalist Party in a bind — to oppose the measure and lose credibility, or support it and appear to be a DPP clone.

For the time being, Nationalist presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou has adopted a middle ground, supporting U.N. membership, but as the Republic of China.

Taiwan specialist Shelley Rigger of Davidson College in North Carolina said U.S. officials aren't panicked, but they are concerned. She says many of them feel Chen cares more about the election than about preserving his relationship with the United States.

"The worry is that he will do things to rally his hard-line base — including deliberately provoking Beijing," Rigger said in an e-mail interview. "I also think there is growing concern that Chen is trying to box in his successor, to force the next president to continue his policies."

(Tehran, Iran) — Iran's supreme leader on Sunday denied his country had any plans to build atomic weapons, but the president insisted the nuclear program itself was not negotiable.

Speaking to an audience of Revolutionary Guards, the elite military unit that answers directly to him, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a rare direct statement that Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons.

"While the Iranian nation has no atomic bomb and has no plans to create this deadly weapon, it is still a respected nation" for its spiritual and revolutionary values, he told the Guards whose leader he had just replaced.

Iran which has always vigorously defended its right to develop its nuclear program also denies allegations by the United States and other countries that it is looking to develop weapons as well.

Earlier in the day, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made it clear that Iran had no intention of slowing or stopping its nuclear energy program despite two rounds of sanctions from the U.N. Security Council and increasing pressure from the United States.

"Iranians are a nation of logic and dialogue but it will not negotiate about its rights with anybody," the official news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. "Enemies of this nation should known that Iran is not about to retreat."

He noted that the recent report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog which applauded Iran for its increased cooperation showed that European nations have a more positive approach to the situation than certain other countries.

"There are only one or two countries that do not understand reality and they think that they can force Iranian nation to back down," Ahmadinejad said, in an apparent reference to the U.S. and Britain.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report in August noted an increased willingness by the Iranians to answer questions after years of stonewalling and was seen as putting the brakes on the push for new sanctions.

According to diplomats, however, that report has displeased the U.S., who are putting pressure on IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei and accuse him of overstepping his authority in dealing with Iran. They spoke on condition of anonymity in exchange for discussing confidential matters with The Associated Press.

The U.S. continues to suspect that Iran is exploiting the agreement with the IAEA as a smoke screen to deflect attention away from its continued defiance of a Security Council ban on uranium enrichment, a potential pathway to nuclear arms.

Iran insists it wants to master the technology only to meet future power needs and argues it is entitled to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty provision giving all pact members the right to develop peaceful programs.

(TAIPEI, Taiwan) — A strong earthquake jolted the Taiwanese capital of Taipei early Friday, shaking buildings and waking residents, but no damage or injuries were reported.

The quake, which was felt for at least 30 seconds, registered a magnitude of 6.6 magnitude and was centered at sea, 44 miles southeast of the eastern city of Ilan at 1:51 a.m. (1:51 p.m. EDT Thursday), the Central Weather Bureau said.

Ilan is about 50 miles east of Taipei.

Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan, but most are minor and cause little or no damage.

However, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan in September 1999 killed more than 2,300 people. In December 2006, a 6.7-magnitude offshore quake south of the city of Kaohsiung severed two undersea cables and disrupted telephone and Internet service to millions of users throughout Asia.