SEOUL, South Korea (AP) South Korean and U.S. troops began naval drills Monday in a show of force partly directed at North Korea amid signs that Pyongyang will soon carry out a threat to conduct its third atomic test.

The region is also seeing a boost in diplomatic activity focused on North Korea's announcement last month that it will conduct a nuclear test to protest international sanctions toughened over Pyongyang's long-range rocket launch in December.

Pyongyang's two previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, both occurred after it was slapped with increased sanctions for similar rocket launches. The U.S., South Korea and other countries have urged North Korea to scrap its nuclear test plans or face grave consequences. North Korea's state media said Sunday that at a high-level Workers' Party meeting, leader Kim Jong Un issued "important" guidelines meant to bolster the army and protect national sovereignty. North Korea didn't elaborate, but Kim's guidelines likely refer to a nuclear test and suggest that Pyongyang appears to have completed formal procedural steps and is preparing to conduct a nuclear test soon, according to South Korean analyst Hong Hyun-ik.

"We assess that North Korea has almost finished preparations for conducting a nuclear test anytime and all that's left is North Korea making a political decision" to do so, Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters Monday.

The spokesman said he couldn't disclose further details because they would involve confidential intelligence affairs. Recent satellite photos showed North Korea may have been sealing the tunnel into a mountainside where a nuclear device could be exploded.

Meanwhile, diplomats are meeting to find ways to persuade North Korea to scrap its nuclear test plans. New U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his South Korean counterpart Kim Sung-hwan held a telephone conversation Sunday night and agreed to sternly deal with any possible nuclear provocation by North Korea, according to Seoul's Foreign Ministry.

South Korea on Sunday also sent its top nuclear negotiator to China, the North's main ally and aid benefactor, for talks, the ministry said in a statement.

North Korea says U.S. hostility and the threat of American troops in South Korea are important reasons behind its nuclear drive. The U.S. stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

North Korea also says it has the sovereign right to launch rockets to send satellites into orbit under a space development program; the U.S. says the December launch was a disguised test of banned missile technology.

On Monday, South Korean and U.S. militaries kicked off three-day exercises off the Korean Peninsula's east coast that involve live-fire exercises, naval maneuvers and submarine detection drills.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the maneuvers are part of regular joint military training that the allies had scheduled before the latest nuclear tensions began. But the training, which involves a nuclear-powered American submarine, could still send a warning against possible North Korean provocation, a South Korean military official said, requesting anonymity because of department rules.

North Korean state media on Saturday described the drills as a joint exercise for a pre-emptive attack on the country. North Korea has said similar things when South Korea and the U.S. conducted other drills; the allies have repeatedly said they have no intention of attacking the North.

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NEW DELHI (AP) Police said Sunday they have arrested six suspects in another gang rape of a bus passenger in India, four weeks after a brutal attack on a student on a moving bus in the capital outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws.

Police officer Raj Jeet Singh said a 29-year-old woman was the only passenger on a bus as she was traveling to her village in northern Punjab state on Friday night. The driver refused to stop at her village despite her repeated pleas and drove her to a desolate location, he said.

There, the driver and the conductor took her to a building where they were joined by five friends and took turns raping her throughout the night, Singh said.

The driver dropped the woman off at her village early Saturday, he said.

Singh said police arrested six suspects on Saturday and were searching for another.

Gurmej Singh, deputy superintendent of police, said all six admitted involvement in the rape. He said the victim was recovering at home.

Also on Saturday, police arrested a 32-year-old man for allegedly raping and killing a 9-year-old girl two weeks ago in Ahmednagar district in western India, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Her decomposed body was found Friday.

Police officer Sunita Thakare said the suspect committed the crime seven months after his release from prison after serving nine years for raping and murdering a girl in 2003, PTI reported Sunday.

The deadly rape of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus in December led to the woman's death and set off an impassioned debate about what India needs to do to prevent such tragedies. Protesters and politicians have called for tougher rape laws, police reforms and a transformation in the way the country treats women.

"It's a very deep malaise. This aspect of gender justice hasn't been dealt with in our nation-building task," Seema Mustafa, a writer on social issues who heads the Center for Policy Analysis think tank, said Sunday.

"Police haven't dealt with the issue severely in the past. The message that goes out is that the punishment doesn't match the crime. Criminals think they can get away it," she said.

In her first published comments, the mother of the deceased student in the New Delhi attack said Sunday that all six suspects in that case, including one believed to be a juvenile, deserve to die.

She was quoted by The Times of India newspaper as saying that her daughter, who died from massive internal injuries two weeks after the attack, told her that the youngest suspect had participated in the most brutal aspects of the rape.

Five men have been charged with the physiotherapy student's rape and murder and face a possible death penalty if convicted. The sixth suspect, who says he is 17 years old, is likely to be tried in a juvenile court if medical tests confirm he is a minor. His maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.

"Now the only thing that will satisfy us is to see them punished. For what they did to her, they deserve to die," the newspaper quoted the mother as saying.

Some activists have demanded a change in Indian laws so that juveniles committing heinous crimes can face the death penalty.

The names of the victim of the Dec. 16 attack and her family have not been released.

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METZINGEN, Germany (Reuters) - German fashion house Hugo Boss is confident it will outperform the luxury market in 2013 thanks to a robust U.S. business and an expected uppick in China later in the year, its finance chief told Reuters.

"What we expect is an improvement over the course of the year," Mark Langer told Reuters in an interview at the group's headquarters in the small German town of Metzingen near Stuttgart. "I'm more cautious for the first quarter."

Hugo Boss, known for its sharply cut men's suits, expects to have a clearer picture of 2013 when it publishes full annual results in March because it will have already started taking orders for its autumn collection by then.

For 2012, Langer said he sees no reason to veer away from the group's forecast for currency-adjusted group sales growth of around 10 percent and core profit growth of 10-12 percent.

Hugo Boss in October posted flat third-quarter sales growth, prompting some concern over whether it could meet its 2012 targets.

"We saw growth speeding up in our wholesale business in the fourth quarter, as we predicted," Langer told Reuters. "Back then we confirmed a target for sales to grow by up to 10 percent and I am just as comfortable with that now."

Langer said the company would be sticking to a dividend payout ratio of 60-80 percent of net profit, meaning investors can expect a higher dividend for 2012.

Analysts on average currently expect a dividend of 3.22 euros ($4.25) per share for 2012, according to Thomson Reuters data, an increase of 11 percent on the payout for 2011.

Langer also said the group hoped to follow the example of London-listed rival Burberry and attract more U.S.-based investors with the launch of an American Depository Receipt program, for which he expects approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the next couple of weeks.

Such a scheme will allow funds that only invest in dollar instruments a chance to trade in its shares and indirectly boost trading volumes in Europe, he said.

(Editing by Maria Sheahan)

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Gerard Depardieu, the French movie star whose decision to quit his homeland to avoid a tax hike prompted accusations of national betrayal.

The "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Green Card" actor bought a house across the border in Belgium last year to avoid a new tax rate for millionaires planned by France's Socialist President Francois Hollande, but said he could also seek tax exile elsewhere.

Putin said last month that Depardieu would be welcome in Russia, which has a flat income tax rate of 13 percent, compared to the 75 percent on income over 1 million euros ($1.32 million) that Hollande wants to levy in France.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called Depardieu's decision to seek Belgian residency "pathetic" and unpatriotic at a time when the French are being asked to pay higher taxes to reduce a bloated national debt.

"I am leaving because you believe that success, creation, talent, anything different must be sanctioned," the actor retorted in a letter published by a newspaper, saying he would hand in his passport and social security card.

Depardieu is well known in Russia, where he has appeared in many advertising campaigns. He worked in the country in 2011 on a film about the eccentric Russian monk Grigory Rasputin.

French media teased Depardieu, showing clips of the actor's Russian work that were unknown at home, including the Rasputin film and a commercial for ketchup.

Magazine L'Express put together a slideshow on its website of other countries that he could flee to, suggesting Italy where he has starred in commercials for Barilla pasta, or Japan, given that the actor owns a Japanese food shop in Paris.

Depardieu welcomed the move to grant him Russian citizenship, according to excerpts of a letter published by a Russian state TV website.

"I love your culture, your intelligence," the letter read. "My father was a communist of that era. He listened to Radio Moscow! That is my culture too."

Depardieu's publicist Francois Hassan Guerrar was not immediately available to comment on the letter.

Depardieu was one of several Western celebrities invited to celebrate the birthday of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader, in 2012.

Depardieu, 63, had told friends he was considering three options to escape France's new tax regime: settling in Belgium, relocating to Montenegro, where he has a business, or moving to Russia, French daily Le Monde reported in December.

Putin told a news conference last month: "If Gerard really wants to have either a residency permit in Russia or a Russian passport, we will assume that this matter is settled and settled positively.

"I know that he (Depardieu) considers himself a Frenchman. He loves his country very much, its history its culture - this is his life, and I'm sure he is going through a tough time now," Putin said.

The Kremlin's website said on Thursday that Putin had signed a decree granting Depardieu citizenship. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was not necessary for Depardieu to move to Russia - that would be the actor's decision.

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Westerners still knew little of Russia's tax regime.

"When they find out, we can expect a mass migration of rich Europeans to Russia," Rogozin, a nationalist politician and former envoy to NATO, said on Twitter.

WELCOME TO RUSSIA

Muscovites said they would welcome Depardieu. "He is a normal guy. He is fond of drinking too, I suppose, the Russian way, so let him come here," said one resident, Lev Nikolaevich.

Putin has in the past spoken of good relations with France, which he visited last June, but he is a frequent critic of the West. He had a tense summit with the European Union last month and wants the bloc to move faster toward visa-free travel.

Since the Cold War, Moscow has often expressed support for Westerners at odds with their governments - a way to counter what Putin says is hypocritical U.S. and European criticism of the Kremlin's treatment of its own citizens.

In 2010, a Kremlin official suggested Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should be nominated for a Nobel Prize.

News of the decree granting Depardieu citizenship set off a frenzy of wry commentary on Russian social networking sites, some musing on why a Westerner would want a Russian passport.

One cartoon posted on the Internet depicted Putin and Depardieu as characters from the French comic books Asterix.

Another showed what appeared to be a nude photo of Depardieu on vacation, with a caption that referred to him as "our compatriot", playing on foreign criticism of how Russians behave on holiday.

Russia does not require people to hand in their foreign passports once they acquire a Russian one. Many Russians have citizenship of other countries and travel without problems.

Depardieu could also request Belgian nationality but has not yet made such a request, said Georges Dallemagne, head of Belgium's parliamentary committee that oversees naturalizations.

"As a Russian he could certainly remain in Belgium, he would possibly need the necessary visas but for a short period he could stay here," said Dallemagne.

France's Constitutional Council last month blocked the planned 75 percent tax rate due to the way it would be applied - but Hollande plans to propose redrafted legislation which will "still ask more of those who have the most".

(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman, Nikolai Isayev and Alexander Fedorov in Moscow, Catherine Bremer in Paris and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Belgium; Writing by Megan Davies; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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BEIJING (AP) Brad Pitt is now on China's version of Twitter, and his mysterious first tweet has drawn thousands of comments.

The actor's verified Sina Weibo account sent the message Monday: "It is the truth. Yup, I'm coming." That was forwarded more than 31,000 times and netted over 14,000 comments, many expressing surprise. He gathered more than 100,000 followers.

The IMDb.com movie website says Pitt was banned from ever entering China because of his role in the 1997 "Seven Years in Tibet." The government was upset about the film's portrayal of harsh Chinese rule in Tibet. His later film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" with Angelina Jolie was popular in China.

Former NBA star Stephon Marbury who now plays for China's professional basketball league is prolific on Weibo and has over 779,000 followers.

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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year speech broadcast on state media.

The address by Kim, who took over power in the reclusive state after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, appeared to take the place of the policy-setting New Year editorial published in leading state newspapers.

But North Korea has offered olive branches before and Kim's speech does not necessarily signify a change in tack from a country which vilifies the United States and U.S. ally South Korea at every chance it gets.

Impoverished North Korea raised tensions in the region by launching a long-range rocket in December that it said was aimed at putting a scientific satellite in orbit, drawing international condemnation.

North Korea, which considers North and South as one country, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is banned from testing missile or nuclear technology under U.N. sanctions imposed after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear weapons tests.

"An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the north and the south," Kim said in the address that appeared to be pre-recorded and was made at an undisclosed location.

"The past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war."

The New Year address was the first in 19 years by a North Korean leader after the death of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un's grandfather. Kim Jong-il rarely spoke in public and disclosed his national policy agenda in editorials in state newspapers.

"(Kim's statement) apparently contains a message that he has an intention to dispel the current face-off (between the two Koreas), which could eventually be linked with the North's call for aid (from the South)," said Kim Tae-woo, a North Korea expert at the state-funded Korea Institute for National Unification.

"But such a move does not necessarily mean any substantive change in the North Korean regime's policy towards the South."

The two Koreas have seen tensions rise to the highest level in decades after the North bombed a Southern island in 2010 killing two civilians and two soldiers.

The sinking of a South Korean navy ship earlier that year was blamed on the North but Pyongyang has denied it and accused Seoul of waging a smear campaign against its leadership.

Last month, South Korea elected as president Park Geun-hye, a conservative daughter of assassinated military ruler Park Chung-hee whom Kim Il-sung had tried to kill at the height of their Cold War confrontation.

Park has vowed to pursue engagement with the North and called for dialogue to build confidence but has demanded that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions, something it is unlikely to do.

Conspicuously absent from Kim's speech was any mention of the nuclear arms program.

(Additional reporting by Sung-Won Shim; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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LONDON (AP) Lavish fireworks displays ushered in 2013 across the Asia-Pacific region on Tuesday, and Europe was holding scaled-back festivities and street parties in the hope of beginning a new year that will be kinder to its battered economies.

Asian cities kicked off New Year's celebrations in style and an atmosphere of renewed optimism, despite the "fiscal cliff" impasse of spending cuts and tax increases threatening to reverberate globally from the United States.

Huge fireworks lit up skylines in Sydney, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and even the once-isolated country of Myanmar joined the countdown party for the first time in decades.

Celebrations were planned around the world, including the traditional crystal ball drop in New York City's Times Square, where 1 million people were expected to cram into the surrounding streets.

In Russia, Moscow's iconic Red Square was filled with spectators as fireworks exploded near the Kremlin to welcome in the new year. Earlier in the day, about 25 people were reportedly arrested in Moscow for trying to hold an unsanctioned demonstration. But President Vladimir Putin gave an optimistic New Year's Eve address, making no reference to the anti-government protests that have occurred in his country in the past year.

"We believe that we can change the life around us and become better ourselves, that we can become more heedful, compassionate, gracious," Putin said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

In Australia, a balmy summer night was split by 7 tons of fireworks fired from rooftops and barges in Sydney, many cascading from the city's Harbor Bridge, in a $6.9 million pyrotechnic extravaganza billed by organizers as the world's largest.

In Myanmar, after nearly five decades under military regimes that discouraged or banned big public gatherings, about 90,000 people experienced the country's first New Year's Eve countdown in a field in the largest city of Yangon.

"We feel like we are in a different world," said Yu Thawda, a university student who came with three of her friends.

Tens of thousands of people lined Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor to view a $1.6 million fireworks display, said to be the biggest ever in the southern Chinese city.

In North Korea, cannons boomed at midnight in Pyongyang as people crowded the streets of the capital to watch a fireworks show over the Taedong River. After being in mourning a year ago regarding leader Kim Jong Il's death, North Koreans celebrated the end of a big year that included the rise of new leader Kim Jong Un and the recent launch of a satellite into space.

Hotels, clubs and other sites in New Delhi, the Indian capital, canceled festivities after the death Saturday of a young rape victim touched off days of mourning and reflection about women's safety. People were asked to light candles to express their solidarity with the victim.

In Indonesia, Jakarta's street party centered on a 7-kilometer (4-mile) thoroughfare closed to traffic from nightfall until after midnight. Workers erected 16 large stages along the normally clogged, eight-lane highway through the heart of the city. Indonesia's booming economy is a rare bright spot amid global gloom and is bringing prosperity or the hope of it to its people.

In the Philippines, where many are recovering from devastation from a recent typhoon, health officials have hit upon a successful way to stop revelers from setting off huge illegal firecrackers that maim and injure hundreds of Filipinos each year.

A health official, Eric Tayag, donned the splashy outfit of South Korean star PSY and danced to his YouTube hit "Gangnam Style" video while preaching against the use of illegal firecrackers on TV, in schools and in public arenas.

"The campaign has become viral," Tayag said.

In austerity-hit Europe, the mood was more restrained if hopeful. The year 2013 is projected to be a sixth straight one of recession amid Greece's worst economic crisis since World War II. In fact, the new year was starting with a 24-hour strike by subway and train workers in Athens to protest salary cuts that are part of the government's austerity measures.

Still, in his televised New Year's Eve message, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras promised Greeks that the worst of the crisis is past, and declared 2013 a "year of hope" that will see the beginning of the country's rebirth.

Celebrating New Year's Eve with a vespers service in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI said that despite all the injustice in the world, goodness prevails. In his homily, Benedict said it's tough to remember that goodness can win when bad news death, violence and injustice "makes more noise than good." He said taking time to meditate in prolonged reflection and prayer can help "find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's New Year's message warned her country to prepare for difficult economic times ahead. Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, decided to cancel celebrations in light of the economic crisis. Nicosia said 16,000 euros ($21,000) saved from the canceled event will be given to some 320 needy schoolchildren.

In Spain, where a recession has left unemployment at a staggering 25 percent, people are hoping for a better new year.

"It's been tough, but some celebrations are too deeply-ingrained to let go," said Olga Camino, 25. She said she would be celebrating in the streets of Madrid in fancy dress with a large group of friends. Camino said they would all eat 12 grapes as the clock in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol struck midnight, a tradition observed throughout Spain.

Scotland's Edinburgh, which traditionally hosts one of the biggest New Year's Eve parties in Europe, also planned good cheer. Festivities for the three-day Hogmanay or year-end celebrations began Sunday with a torchlight procession in the Scottish capital, and organizers said about 75,000 people are expected to line the streets for Tuesday's fireworks.

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McGuirk reported from Sydney. Associated Press writers Aye Aye Win in Yangon, Myanmar; Jean Lee in Pyongyang, North Korea; Chris Brummitt in Jakarta, Indonesia; Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong; Ashok Sharma in New Delhi; Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines; Nicholas Paphitis in Athens; Raphael Satter in London; Harold Heckle in Madrid, Spain; and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.

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ALEPPO PROVINCE, Syria (Reuters) - At a converted warehouse in the midst of a block of residential homes in a northern Syrian town, men are hard at work at giant lathes, shavings of metal gathering around them.

Sacks of potassium nitrate and sugar lie nearby.

In a neat row against the wall is the finished product, homemade mortars. Syrian rebels say they have been forced to make them because their calls for heavy weapons and ammunition to fight President Bashar al-Assad have gone unanswered.

"No one's giving us any support. So we're working on our own to strike Bashar," said a bearded man spinning the metal to create the warhead.

Using the Internet, the workshop of about seven men work together to try and perfect the crude weapons. For explosives, they pick out TNT from unexploded rockets that Assad's forces have fired towards them and repackage them into their own weapons. Each gave different estimates of the mortars' range.

"We're volunteers, we were workers, we were never soldiers. They're locally made. They don't have the strength of the regime's rockets, but they are having good effects," said Abu Mohammed, who said the mortars created a 3-1/2 meter crater.

Another worker said the mortars, which take about a day to make, could reach a distance of 6 km (almost 4 miles).

Although the rebels, who are mostly Sunni Muslim fighters, have made big gains in the northern and eastern parts of Syria in the 21-month conflict, they are outgunned by Assad's forces.

Some rebel groups are receiving supplies from Gulf states, and Western countries say they are giving non-lethal aid. But many rebels say they have not received anything.

Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in Aleppo province, told Reuters last week that his forces are fighting without any help from the Western and Arab governments which want Assad removed from power.

"We aren't able to get any weapons from abroad. We have nothing except for the rifle to fight with," said another man at the workshop.

OLD TANKS

The success rate of the weapons is questionable. Two men said the mortars hit 80 to 90 percent of the targets, but there have been problems. Sometimes the mortars do not detonate, other times they explode prematurely.

"The more we practice, the more experience we get," said one of the men, explaining how they discovered that if they let the propelling agent mixture set for too long it absorbed humidity, which in turn stopped the mortar from detonating.

At one of the Aleppo frontline positions, rebels fired the mortars from a homemade tube, fashioned from piping on a mount made from a car axle.

The rebels have also been working on refurbishing weaponry acquired during takeovers of Assad's military bases.

Parked in a residential street, a group of men have been working on fixing a T-72 tank whose gear box was blown.

Abu Jumaa, one of the mechanics working on the 1970s tank, said fighters had taken it from an infantry college in north Syria that had recently fallen to rebel forces.

"We have no tanks, no planes, no artillery. All we have is what we get in spoils and we go to war against him (Assad) with what we get. That's the reality. We're forced to do this," he told Reuters.

"These tanks are useless in the first place. It can't be called a tank, It's a lump of scrap iron," he said gesturing at the chipped army green metal.

Rebel fighters on the frontline consistently complain of shortages of weapons and ammunition that have forced them to stop advances and focus on keeping the ground they have gained.

"We get 3,000 bullets a month. No anti-aircraft missiles ... everything is from the military bases (we take over)," said one young rebel fighter from the Supporters of Mohammed Brigade, wearing a plaid yellow and black turban.

Even though the rebels have managed to seize large quantities of weapons from military bases, they struggle with a chronic shortage of ammunition and weapons to target Assad's fighter jets.

"You see how the planes are striking all of us, not differentiating between old and young ... God has helped us, we've made these rockets and we're using them to hit back at them all over again," said Abu Mohammed.

(Editing by Peter Graff and Robin Pomeroy)

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea has repaired flood damage at its nuclear test facility and could conduct a quick atomic explosion if it chose, though water streaming out of a test tunnel may cause problems, analysis of recent satellite photos indicates.

Washington and others are bracing for the possibility that if punished for a successful long-range rocket launch on Dec. 12 that the U.N. considers a cover for a banned ballistic missile test, North Korea's next step might be its third nuclear test.

Rocket and nuclear tests unnerve Washington and its allies because each new success puts North Korean scientists another step closer to perfecting a nuclear warhead small enough to put on a missile that could hit the mainland United States.

Another nuclear test, which North Korea's Foreign Ministry hinted at on the day of the rocket launch, would fit a pattern. Pyongyang conducted its first and second atomic explosions, in 2006 and 2009, weeks after receiving U.N. Security Council condemnation and sanctions for similar long-range rocket launches.

North Korea is thought to have enough plutonium for a handful of crude atomic bombs, and unveiled a uranium enrichment facility in 2010, but it must continue to conduct tests to master the miniaturization technology crucial for a true nuclear weapons program.

"With an additional nuclear test, North Korea could advance their ability to eventually deploy a nuclear weapon on a long-range missile," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the nongovernment Arms Control Association.

Analysts caution that only so much can be determined from satellite imagery, and it's very difficult to fully discern North Korea's plans. This is especially true for nuclear test preparations, which are often done deep within a mountain. North Korea, for instance, took many by surprise when it launched its rocket this month only several days after announcing technical problems.

Although there's no sign of an imminent nuclear test, U.S. and South Korean officials worry that Pyongyang could conduct one at any time.

Analysis of GeoEye and Digital Globe satellite photos from Dec. 13 and earlier, provided to The Associated Press by 38 North, the website for the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said scientists are "determined to maintain a state of readiness" at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility after repairing flood damage.

The nuclear speculation comes as South Korea's conservative president-elect, Park Geun-hye, prepares to take office in February, and as young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un marks his one-year anniversary as supreme commander.

Kim has consolidated power since taking over after his father, Kim Jong Il, died Dec. 17, 2011, and the rocket launch is seen as a major internal political and popular boost for the 20-something leader.

Some analysts, however, question whether Kim will risk international, and especially Chinese, wrath and sure sanctions by quickly conducting a nuclear test.

The election of Park in South Korea and Barack Obama's re-election to a second term as U.S. president could "prompt North Korea to try more diplomacy than military options," said Chang Yong-seok, an analyst at the Institute for Peace Affairs, a private think tank in Seoul. "I think we'll see North Korea more focused on economic revival than on nuclear testing next year."

The 38 North analysis said the North "may be able to trigger a detonation in as little as two weeks, once a political decision is made to move forward." But the report by Jack Liu, Nick Hansen and Jeffrey Lewis also said it was unclear whether water seepage from a tunnel entrance at the site was under control. Water could hurt a nuclear device and the sensors needed to monitor a test.

The analysis also identified what it called a previously unidentified structure that could be meant to protect sensitive equipment from bad weather.

"We don't have a crystal ball that will tell us when the North will conduct its third nuclear test," said Joel Wit, a former U.S. State Department official and now editor of 38 North. "But events over the next few months, such as the U.N. reaction to Pyongyang's missile test and the North's unfolding policy toward the new South Korean government, may at least provide us with some clues."

Another unknown is how China, the North's only major ally, would respond to calls for tighter sanctions. Washington views more pressure from Beijing as pivotal if diplomatic pressure is going to force change in Pyongyang.

Even if Beijing signs on to U.N. punishment if the North conducts a test, there may be less hurt for Pyongyang than Washington wants.

The impact of tougher sanctions would be "a drop in the bucket compared with the tidal wave of China-North Korean trade" that has risen sharply since 2008, even as inter-Korean trade has remained flat, said John Park, a Korea expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Trade figures show North Korea's deepening dependence on China. Pyongyang's trade with Beijing surged more than 60 percent last year, reaching $5.63 billion, according to South Korea's Statistics Korea. China accounted for 70 percent of North Korea's annual trade in 2011, up from 57 percent in 2010.

North Korea's 2006 nuclear test had an estimated explosive yield of 1 kiloton. The Los Alamos National Laboratory estimated in 2011 that the North's test on May 25, 2009, which followed U.N. condemnation of an April long-range rocket launch, had a minimum yield of 5.7 kilotons. The atomic bomb that hit Nagasaki at the end of World War II was about 21 kilotons.

Both North Korean tests used plutonium for fissile material. Without at least one more successful plutonium test, it's unlikely that Pyongyang could have confidence in a miniaturized plutonium design, according to an August paper by Frank Pabian of Los Alamos and Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University.

North Korea's small plutonium stockpile is sufficient for four to eight bombs, they wrote, but it may be willing to sacrifice some if it can augment information from the previous tests. Pabian and Hecker predicted that Pyongyang may simultaneously test both plutonium and highly enriched uranium devices.

A uranium test would worry the international community even more, as it would confirm that North Korea, which would need months to restart its shuttered plutonium reactor, has an alternative source of fissile material based on uranium enrichment. North Korea unveiled a previously secret uranium enrichment plant in November 2010.

"Whether and when North Korea conducts another nuclear test will depend on how high a political cost Pyongyang is willing to bear," Pabian and Hecker wrote.

Another test would also undermine Pyongyang's assertion that its long-range rocket launches are for a peaceful space program and not what outsiders see as the development of ballistic missiles that could eventually deliver nuclear weapons.

On the same day as this month's rocket launch, an unidentified North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman told state media that a hostile U.S. response to a failed launch in April of this year had forced Pyongyang "to re-examine the nuclear issue as a whole."

The statement was a clear threat to detonate a nuclear device ahead of any U.N. Security Council action, said Baek Seung-joo, an analyst at the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.

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Pennington reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Sam Kim contributed from Seoul.

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BEIJING (AP) China's new communist leaders are increasing already tight controls on Internet use and electronic publishing following a spate of embarrassing online reports about official abuses.

The measures suggest China's new leader, Xi Jinping, and others who took power in November share their predecessors' anxiety about the Internet's potential to spread opposition to one-party rule and their insistence on controlling information despite promises of more economic reforms.

"They are still very paranoid about the potentially destabilizing effect of the Internet," said Willy Lam, a politics specialist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "They are on the point of losing a monopoly on information, but they still are very eager to control the dissemination of views."

This week, China's legislature took up a measure to require Internet users to register their real names, a move that would curtail the Web's status as a freewheeling forum to complain, often anonymously, about corruption and official abuses. The legislature scheduled a news conference Friday to discuss the measure, suggesting it was expected to be approved.

That comes amid reports Beijing might be disrupting use of software that allows Web surfers to see sites abroad that are blocked by its extensive Internet filters. At the same time, regulators have proposed rules that would bar foreign companies from distributing books, news, music and other material online in China.

Beijing promotes Internet use for business and education but bans material deemed subversive or obscene and blocks access to foreign websites run by human rights and Tibet activists and some news outlets. Controls were tightened after social media played a role in protests that brought down governments in Egypt and Tunisia.

In a reminder of the Web's role as a political forum, a group of 70 prominent Chinese scholars and lawyers circulated an online petition this week appealing for free speech, independent courts and for the ruling party to encourage private enterprise.

Xi and others on the party's ruling seven-member Standing Committee have tried to promote an image of themselves as men of the people who care about China's poor majority. They have promised to press ahead with market-oriented reforms and to support entrepreneurs but have given no sign of support for political reform.

Communist leaders who see the Internet as a source of economic growth and better-paid jobs were slow to enforce the same level of control they impose on movies, books and other media, apparently for fear of hurting fledgling entertainment, shopping and other online businesses.

Until recently, Web surfers could post comments online or on microblog services without leaving their names.

That gave ordinary Chinese a unique opportunity to express themselves to a public audience in a society where newspapers, television and other media are state-controlled. The most popular microblog services say they have more than 300 million users and some users have millions of followers reading their comments.

The Internet also has given the public an unusual opportunity to publicize accusations of official misconduct.

A local party official in China's southwest was fired in November after scenes from a videotape of him having sex with a young woman spread quickly on the Internet. Screenshots were uploaded by a former journalist in Beijing, Zhu Ruifeng, to his Hong Kong website, an online clearing house for corruption allegations.

Some industry analysts suggest allowing Web surfers in a controlled setting to vent helps communist leaders stay abreast of public sentiment in their fast-changing society. Still, microblog services and online bulletin boards are required to employ censors to enforce content restrictions. Researchers say they delete millions of postings a day.

The government says the latest Internet regulation before the National People's Congress is aimed at protecting Web surfers' personal information and cracking down on abuses such as junk e-mail. It would require users to report their real names to Internet service and telecom providers.

The main ruling party newspaper, People's Daily, has called in recent weeks for tighter Internet controls, saying rumors spread online have harmed the public. In one case, it said stories about a chemical plant explosion resulted in the deaths of four people in a car accident as they fled the area.

Proposed rules released this month by the General Administration of Press and Publications would bar Chinese-foreign joint ventures from publishing books, music, movies and other material online in China. Publishers would be required to locate their servers in China and have a Chinese citizen as their local legal representative.

That is in line with rules that already bar most foreign access to China's media market, but the decision to group the restrictions together and publicize them might indicate official attitudes are hardening.

That comes after the party was rattled by foreign news reports about official wealth and misconduct.

In June, Bloomberg News reported that Xi's extended family has amassed assets totaling $376 million, though it said none was traced to Xi. The government has blocked access to Bloomberg's website since then.

In October, The New York Times reported that Premier Wen Jiabao's relatives had amassed $2.7 billion since he rose to national office in 2002. Access to the Times' Chinese-language site has been blocked since then.

Previous efforts to tighten controls have struggled with technical challenges in a country with more than 500 million Internet users.

Microblog operators such as Sina Corp. and Tencent Ltd. were ordered in late 2011 to confirm users' names but have yet to finish the daunting task.

Web surfers can circumvent government filters by using virtual private networks software that encrypts Web traffic and is used by companies to transfer financial data and other sensitive information. But VPN users say disruptions that began in 2011 are increasing, suggesting Chinese regulators are trying to block encrypted traffic.

Curbs on access to foreign sites have prompted complaints by companies and Chinese scientists and other researchers.

In July, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said 74 percent of companies that responded to a survey said unstable Internet access "impedes their ability to do business."

Chinese leaders "realize there are detrimental impacts on business, especially foreign business, but they have counted the cost and think it is still worthwhile," said Lam. "There is no compromise about the political imperative of controlling the Internet."

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HOUSTON (AP) Former President George H.W. Bush spent Christmas in a Houston hospital with his wife, Barbara, and other relatives who planned to treat him to a special holiday meal.

Bush's son, Neil, and his wife also visited on Tuesday, and one of Bush's grandsons was planning to stop by as well, said Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman in Houston.

The 88-year-old has been in the hospital since Nov. 23 with a lingering, bronchitis-like cough. A hospital spokesman had said Bush was likely to be released to spend Christmas at home, but then McGrath said the former president developed a fever.

Doctors remain "cautiously optimistic" Bush will recover, but want to keep him in the hospital while they help him build up his strength and balance his medications, McGrath said.

On Christmas, the Bush family normally eats at Gigi's Asian Bistro in Houston's Galleria neighborhood, McGrath said. There were plans to pick up food at the upscale restaurant and bring the meal to the hospital.

Bush has been receiving visitors for weeks, including two by his son, former President George W. Bush, and one by Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida.

Bush and his wife reside in Houston during the winter, and spend their summers at a home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The former president was a naval aviator in World War II at one point the youngest in the Navy and was shot down over the Pacific. He achieved notoriety in retirement for skydiving on at least three of his birthdays since leaving the White House in 1992.

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia sent warships to the Mediterranean to prepare a potential evacuation of its citizens from Syria , a Russian news agency said on Tuesday, a sign President Bashar al-Assad 's key ally is worried about rebel advances that now threaten even the capital.

Moscow acted a day after insurgents waging a 21-month-old uprising obtained a possible springboard for a thrust into Damascus by seizing the Yarmouk Palestinian camp just 2 miles from the heart of the city, activists said.

The anti-Assad opposition has posted significant military and diplomatic gains in recent weeks, capturing a series of army installations across Syria and securing formal recognition from Western and Arab states for its new coalition.

Assad's pivotal allies have largely stood behind him. But Russia, his main arms supplier, appeared to waver this week with contradictory statements repeating opposition to Assad stepping down and airing concerns about a possible rebel victory.

Russia's Interfax news agency quoted unnamed naval sources on Tuesday as saying that two assault ships, a tanker and an escort vessel had left a Baltic port for the Mediterranean Sea, where Russia has a port in Syria's coastal city of Tartus.

"They are heading to the Syrian coast to assist in a possible evacuation of Russian citizens ... Preparations for the deployment were carried out in a hurry and were heavily classified," the Russian agency quoted the source as saying.

It was not possible to independently verify the report, which came a day after Russia confirmed that two citizens working in Syria were kidnapped along with an Italian citizen.

YARMOUK A "RED LINE"

In Damascus, activists reported overnight explosions and early morning sniper fire around the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk. The Yarmouk and Palestine refugee "camps" are actually densely populated urban districts home to thousands of impoverished Palestinian refugees and Syrians.

"The rebels control the camp but army forces are gathering in the Palestine camp and snipers can fire in on the southern parts of Yarmouk," rebel spokesman Abu Nidal said by Skype.

"Strategically, this site is very important because it is one of the best doors into central Damascus. The regime normally does not fight to regain areas captured any more because its forces have been drained. But I think they could see Yarmouk as a red line and fight back fiercely."

Syria hosts half a million Palestinian refugees , most living in Yarmouk, descendants of those admitted after the creation of Israel in 1948, and has always cast itself as a champion of the Palestinian struggle, sponsoring several guerrilla factions.

The battle in Yarmouk was one of a series of conflicts on the southern edges of Damascus, as rebels try to choke off the capital to end 42 years of rule by the Assad family, who belong to the minority Alawite sect, derived from Shi'ite Islam.

Both Assad's government and the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels have enlisted and armed divided Palestinian factions as the uprising mushroomed from street protests into a civil war.

Streams of refugees have fled Yarmouk, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday. Many have headed to central Damascus while hundreds more have gone across the frontier into Lebanon.

MEDICAL SHORTAGES, EXTREME HUNGER

More than 40,000 people have died in Syria's conflict, activists say. Around 200 died on Monday alone, according to the British-based Observatory, which has a network of activists across Syria. Violence has risen sharply, and with it humanitarian conditions are deteriorating.

The World Health Organisation said around 100 people were being admitted daily to the main hospital of Damascus and that supplies of medicines and anesthetics were scarce.

It also reported a rise in cases of extreme hunger and malnutrition coming from across Syria, including the rebel-dominated rural areas outside the capital, where the army has launched punishing air raids.

Aid organizations say fighting has blocked their access into many conflict zones, and residents in rebel-held areas in particular have grappled with severe food and medical shortages.

Fighting raged across Syria on Tuesday, with fighter jets and ground rockets bombarding rebel-dominated eastern suburbs of the capital and army forces shelling a town in Hama province after clashes reignited there over the weekend.

Rebels overran at least five army sites in a new offensive in Hama on Monday, opposition activists said.

Qassem Saadeddine, a member of the newly established rebel military command, said on Sunday fighters had been ordered to surround and attack army positions across Hama province. He said Assad's forces were given 48 hours to surrender or be killed.

In 1982 Hafez al-Assad, late father of the current ruler, crushed an uprising in Hama city, killing up to 30,000 civilians.

Qatiba al-Naasan, a rebel from Hama, said the offensive would probably bring retaliatory air strikes from the government but said that rebels were keen to put more strain on the army as living conditions deteriorated in the province.

"For sure there will be slaughter - if the army wants to shell us, many people will die," he said by Skype. "But at the same time our situation is already getting miserable. "

Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa said in a newspaper interview published on Monday that neither Assad's forces nor rebels seeking to overthrow him can win the war.

Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim in a power elite dominated by Assad's Alawites, is not part of the president's inner circle directing the fight against Sunni rebels but is the most prominent figure to say in public that Assad would not prevail.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes, Erika Solomon and Dominic Evans in Beirut, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Afif Diab in Masnaa, Lebanon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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BEIRUT (AP) Syria 's vice president has acknowledged that the army cannot defeat the rebel forces trying to topple the regime and called for a negotiated settlement to save the country from ruin.

The rare, candid comments by Farouk al-Sharaa , a longtime close aide to President Bashar Assad 's family, suggested his embattled regime may be contemplating an exit strategy as rebel forces move closer to the capital Damascus . He spoke in an interview published Monday by Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.

"I don't see that what the security forces and army units are doing will lead to a definitive victory," al-Sharaa was quoted as saying in the interview conducted in Damascus.

"All these opposition forces can only conclude the battle to topple the regime if their goal is to push the country into chaos and a cycle of violence that has no end," he added.

Al-Sharaa pushed for a negotiated political settlement that includes the formation of a national unity government with wide jurisdiction.

His comments coincided with a step-by-step peace plan for Syria outlined by Iranian officials on Sunday. It would be capped by Syrian elections that presumably could usher in a new leader in Damascus.

Tehran is Assad's closest and perhaps only remaining regional ally and the initiative suggests its embrace of the Syrian president could be cooling.

The initiative while almost certain to be rejected by Syrian rebel factions marks one of the clearest signals yet that Iran's leadership is looking to hedge its bets and remain a player in Syrian affairs if Assad is toppled.

It was unclear whether al-Sharaa's comments were timed to coordinate with the Iranian initiative.

Al-Sharaa, 73, a longtime loyalist to the Assad family, has been a controversial figure since the start of the uprising.

He appeared in public in late August for the first time in weeks, ending repeated rumors that he had defected. The regime has suffered a string of prominent defections in recent months, though Assad's inner circle and military have largely kept their cohesive stance behind him. Assad and his inner circle are predominantly Alawites, a minority sect that is an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The opposition is dominated by the majority Sunni Muslims.

Early on in the uprising, the Syrian president delegated to al-Sharaa, a skilled diplomat, responsibility for holding a dialogue with the opposition. A Sunni from the southern town of Daraa, birthplace of the Syrian uprising, al-Sharaa's silence since the start of the uprising made him a prime candidate for rumors that he broke with the regime.

His comments after a long silence suggest he may be have been given a green light to sound out readiness for a political settlement .

Syrian rebels have made significant tactical advances in the past weeks, capturing air bases and military installations near Syria's largest city of Aleppo and in the capital Damascus. On Sunday, an Islamist faction took an infantry base in Aleppo, a second army base that was captured from the troops in the northern city in a week.

Also, Western nations are talking of stepped up aid to the rebels. And there were mixed messages last week from Assad's key international ally Russia, which tried to backpedal after a top diplomat said Assad is losing control of his country.

Al-Sharaa offered an unusually bleak public assessment of the civil war.

"Every day that passes, the military and political solution gets more elusive," he said. "We need to be in a position to defend Syria. We are not in a battle for an individual or a regime."

In October, the Turkish leadership appeared to be making a diplomatic push to promote al-Sharaa as a possible figure to head a transitional administration to end the conflict.

"No one knows the system better than Farouk al-Sharaa," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at the time, adding that al-Sharaa has not been involved in the violence and massacres.

The Syrian opposition is deeply fragmented, and various factions would likely disagree on whether they would accept him to lead a transitional government. Al-Sharaa, in the interview, said he was not seeking such a role.

Violence across many parts of the country, including the outskirts of the capital Damascus, flared again on Monday.

Italy's government said an Italian technician and two other employees at a Syrian steel plant were kidnapped. A statement from Italy's foreign ministry said the abductions took place near the Syrian town of Latakia, but didn't say when or by whom.

Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said the two workers kidnapped along with the Italian have different nationalities but did not identify them.

The Italian news agency ANSA said the Italian who was abducted is an engineer.

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CANBERRA (Reuters) - Two Australian radio announcers who made a prank call to a British hospital treating Prince William 's pregnant wife Kate broke a three-day silence on Monday to speak of their distress at the apparent suicide of the nurse who took their call.

The 2DayFM Sydney-based announcers, Mel Greig and Michael Christian , said the tragedy had left them "shattered, gutted, heartbroken".

Greig and fellow presenter and prank mastermind Christian have been in hiding since nurse Jacintha Saldanha 's death and the subsequent social media outrage at their prank.

Greig told Australian television her first thought when told of Saldanha 's death was for her family.

"Unfortunately I remember that moment very well, because I haven't stopped thinking about it since it happened," she said, amid tears and her voice quavering with emotion. "I remember my first question was 'was she a mother?'."

"I've wanted to just reach out to them and just give them a big hug and say sorry. I hope they're okay, I really do. I hope they get through this," said a black-clad Greig when asked about mother of two Saldanha's children, left grieving their mother's death with their father Ben Barboza.

Saldanha, 46, was found dead in staff accommodation near London's King Edward VII hospital on Friday after putting the hoax call through to a colleague who unwittingly disclosed details of Kate's morning sickness to 2DayFM's presenters.

A recording of the call, broadcast repeatedly by the station, rapidly became an internet hit and was reprinted as a transcript in many newspapers.

But news of Saldanha's death sparked the Internet firestorm, with vitriolic comments towards the DJs on Facebook and Twitter.

Christian said his only wish was that Saldanha's grief-stricken family received proper support.

"I hope that they get the love, the support, the care that they need, you know," said Christian, who like Greig struggled to talk about the tragedy.

Both Greig, 30, and Christian were relatively new to the station, with Greig joining in March and Christian having been in the job only a few days before the prank call after a career in regional radio.

Greig said she did not think their prank would work.

"We thought a hundred people before us would've tried it. We thought it was such a silly idea and the accents were terrible and not for a second did we expect to speak to Kate, let alone have a conversation with anyone at the hospital. We wanted to be hung up on," she said.

Christian drew headlines only two weeks before the royal prank call by angering fellow passengers with a harmonica playing stunt aboard pop star Rihanna's private jet.

The 2Day parent company Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) has received more than 1,000 complaints from Australians over the actions of the popular presenters, who have both been taken off air during an broadcasting watchdog investigation.

Shares in SCA fell 5 percent on Monday after two major Australian companies pulled their advertising with the radio station in protest and other advertising was suspended.

The station said it had tried to contact hospital staff five times over the recordings.

"It is absolutely true to say that we actually did attempt to contact those people on multiple occasions," said SCA chief executive Rhys Holleran.

"No one could have reasonably foreseen what has happened. I can only say the prank call is not unusual around the world," he said.

The fallout from the radio stunt has brought back memories in Britain of the death of William's mother Diana in a Paris car crash in 1997 and threatens to cast a pall over the birth of his and Kate's first child.

Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy sought to deflect calls for more media regulation, telling journalists that a looming investigation by Australia's independent regulator should be allowed to happen without political interference.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Michael Perry)

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CAIRO (AP) Egypt 's liberal opposition called for more protests Sunday, seeking to keep up the momentum of its street campaign after the president made a partial concession overnight but refused its main demand he rescind a draft constitution going to a referendum on Dec. 15.

President Mohammed Morsi met one of the opposition's demands, annulling his Nov. 22 decrees that gave him near unrestricted powers. But he insisted on going ahead with the referendum on a constitution hurriedly adopted by his Islamist allies during an all-night session late last month.

The opposition National Salvation Front called on supporters to rally against the referendum. The size of Sunday's turnout, especially at Cairo's central Tahrir square and outside the presidential palace in the capital's Heliopolis district, will determine whether Morsi 's concession chipped away some of the popular support for the opposition's cause.

The opposition said Morsi's rescinding of his decrees was an empty gesture since the decrees had already achieved their main aim of ensuring the adoption of the draft constitution. The edicts had barred the courts from dissolving the Constituent Assembly that passed the charter and further neutered the judiciary by making Morsi immune from its oversight.

Still, the lifting of the decrees could persuade many judges to drop their two-week strike to protest what their leaders called Morsi's assault on the judiciary. An end to their strike means they would oversee the Dec. 15 vote as is customary in Egypt.

If the referendum goes ahead, the opposition faces a new challenge either to campaign for a "no" vote or to boycott the process altogether. A low turnout or the charter passing by a small margin of victory would cast doubts on the constitution 's legitimacy.

It was the decrees that initially sparked the wave of protests against Morsi that has brought tens of thousands into the streets in past weeks. But the rushed passage of the constitution further inflamed those who feel Morsi and his Islamist allies, including the Muslim Brotherhood , are monopolizing power in Egypt and trying to force their agenda.

The draft charter was adopted amid a boycott by liberal and Christian members of the Constituent Assembly. The document would open the door to Egypt's most extensive implementation of Islamic law, enshrining a say for Muslim clerics in legislation, making civil rights subordinate to Shariah and broadly allowing the state to protect "ethics and morals." It fails to outlaw gender discrimination and mainly refers to women in relation to home and family.

Sunday's rallies would be the latest of a series by opponents and supporters of Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Both sides have drawn tens of thousands of people into the streets, sparking bouts of street battles that have left at least six people dead and hundreds wounded. Several offices of the Muslim Brotherhood also have been ransacked or torched in the unrest.

Morsi, who took office in June as Egypt's first freely elected president, rescinded the Nov. 22 decrees at the recommendation Saturday of a panel of 54 politicians and clerics who took part in a "national dialogue" the president called for to resolve the crisis. Most of the 54 were Islamists who support the president, since the opposition boycotted the dialogue.

In his overnight announcement, Morsi also declared that if the draft constitution is rejected by voters in the referendum, a nationwide election would be held to select the next Constituent Assembly.

The assembly that adopted the draft was created by parliament, which was dominated by the Brotherhood and other Islamists, and had an Islamist majority from the start. The lawmaking lower house of parliament was later disbanded by court order before Morsi's inauguration.

If the draft is approved in the referendum, elections would be held for a new lower house of parliament would be held within two months, Morsi decided.

The president has maintained all along that his Nov. 22 decrees were motivated by his desire to protect the country's state institutions and transition to democratic rule against a "conspiracy" hatched by figures of the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak.

Morsi, whose claims have been repeated by leaders of his Brotherhood, has yet to divulge details of the alleged conspiracy.

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LONDON (AP) British police say they have contacted Australian authorities about a possible investigation into an Australian radio station 's hoax call to a U.K. hospital.

The callers impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles and received confidential details about the former Kate Middleton 's medical information . The call was recorded and broadcast.

The prank took an ugly twist Friday with the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha , a 46-year-old mother of two, three days after she took the hoax call.

Police have not yet determined Saldanha's cause of death, but people from London to Sydney have been making the assumption that she died because of stress from the call.

The disk jockeys involved have been suspended indefinitely.

Australian police Sunday confirmed they had been contacted by London police and said they would cooperate.

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CAIRO (AP) Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters push past barbed wire fences installed by the army and march on the presidential palace, calling for President Mohammed Morsi to "leave" a day after they say he offered no concessions to opposition demands.

Climbing over tanks of the Republican Guard, protesters streamed toward the palace as night fell Friday, crossing a no-go zone set up around the compound's perimeter.

The area witnessed deadly clashes on Wednesday, when supporters of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group drove out crowds camped outside the palace. The clashes left at least six dead and hundreds injured, deepening the schism between the two sides.

Egypt is plunging deeper into crisis as protesters mainly liberals press Morsi to call off a referendum on a draft constitution agreed by his allies.

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CAIRO (AP) Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets after Friday midday prayers in rival rallies and marches across Cairo, as the standoff deepened over what opponents call the Islamist president's power grab, raising the specter of more violence.

President Mohammed Morsi responded to bloody clashes outside his palace with a fiery speech denouncing his opponents, deepening the crisis. The opposition turned down his appeal for talks, saying the president had not fulfilled their conditions for beginning negotiations.

Protesters are demanding that Morsi rescind decrees that give him almost absolute power and push an Islamist-friendly constitution to a referendum on Dec. 15. The decrees sparked a crisis that has boiled for more than two weeks. Demonstrations have reached the size and intensity of those that brought down President Hosni Mubarak early last year.

In a televised address late Thursday, an angry Morsi refused to call off the vote on the disputed constitution. He accused some in the opposition of serving remnants of Mubarak's regime and vowed he would never tolerate anyone working for the overthrow of his government.

He also invited the opposition to a dialogue starting Saturday at his palace, but he gave no sign that he might offer any meaningful concessions. Morsi's opponents replied they would not talk until Morsi cancels his decrees.

The president's remarks were his first comments to the public after bloody clashes outside his palace on Wednesday, when thousands of his backers from the Muslim Brotherhood fought with the president's opponents. Six people were killed and at least 700 injured.

The speech brought shouts of "the people want to topple the regime!" from the crowd of 30,000 Morsi opponents gathered outside his palace the same chant heard in the protests that brought down Mubarak.

Since the crisis erupted, the opposition has tried to forge a united front. The squabbling groups created a National Salvation Front to bring them together, naming Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, the country's top reform campaigner, as its leader.

Speaking on the new umbrella group's behalf, ElBaradei responded to Morsi's speech in his own televised remarks, saying that Morsi's government showed reluctance in acting to stop Wednesday night's bloodshed outside the palace. He said this failure has eroded the government's legitimacy and made it difficult for his opposition front to negotiate with the president.

ElBaradei said Morsi has not responded to the opposition group's attempts to "rescue the country" and that the president had "closed the door for dialogue" by "ignoring the demands of the people."

After Friday prayers, protesters began marching to the palace from several different directions.

The April 6 movement, which played a key role in sparking the uprising against Mubarak, called its supporters to gather at mosques in Cairo and the neighboring city of Giza to march to the palace. They termed Friday's march a "red card" for Morsi, a reference to a football referee sending a player off the field for a serious violation.

Egypt's military intervened on Thursday for the first time, posting tanks around the palace and stringing barbed wire.

Also on Friday morning, thousands of Brotherhood members gathered in Cairo outside the mosque of Al-Azhar, Egypt's most respected Islamic institution, for the funeral of two members of the fundamentalist group who were killed during Wednesday's clashes.

During the funeral, thousands Islamist mourners chanted, "with blood and soul, we redeem Islam," pumping their fists in the air. "Egypt is Islamic, it will not be secular, it will not be liberal," they chanted as they walked in a funeral procession that filled streets around Al-Azhar mosque.

Ultraconservative Islamists known as Salafis are organizing their own rally Friday against what they say is biased coverage of the crisis by private Egyptian satellite TV channels.

___

Additional reporting from Associated Press writer Maggie Michael.

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The spike in concern over Syrias stockpile of chemical weapons stems in part from worries that an increasingly desperate President Bashar al-Assad might use them against advancing rebel forces in the countrys 21-month-old civil war.

But Mr. Assad also might be sending a different signal to the US and the international community, analysts say. By ordering activity at chemical weapons sites, Assad could be reminding the international powers demanding his departure that his fall would likely be followed by chaos in which radical Islamists could get their hands on Syrias weapons of mass destruction.

By far the greater threat is that the state collapses, with the threat of terrorists getting their hands on these weapons, says Charles Blair, an expert at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in Washington.

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US officials claim that the Syrian military has gone as far as loading precursor chemicals for the nerve gas sarin into bombs, NBC News reported Thursday. Their use would have serious consequences for the Assad regime. President Obama repeated this week that any use of the weapons by Syria is a red line for the United States.

The fate of Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons is something that concerns the US. Earlier this year, a Pentagon report concluded that it would take 70,000 troops to find and secure Syria's known stockpiles, Mr. Blair notes.

Publicly, Syrian officials maintain that the Assad regime would never use chemical weapons against the Syrian people. On Thursday, one member of the regime, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Maqdad, told Lebanese television that the United States and some European States were fabricating the chemical-weapons scare to create a pretext for intervention in the conflict.

US officials have to consider all the possible motivations behind Assads actions, military experts say. But some are confident the US would act preemptively if it was convinced that Assad was on the verge of launching a chemical attack.

If [the US] had knowledge of them loading these weapons onto planes, theyd go in and take them out right away, Id expect to see that, says Lawrence Korb, a defense analyst at the Center for American Progress in Washington. The problem is that youd have to have very good intelligence on where to go to get them.

But Blair says he can envision a range of ways the US might respond to a chemical attack.

The fast route, he says, would be to launch a punitive strike in retaliation and to try to take out Assad. The longer route, he adds, might be to return to the United Nations Security Council to get support for international intervention support Russia and China have denied so far.

Theres such a taboo against chemical-weapons use that youd have to assume that Russia and China would no longer block UN action, he says.

Another question is what the international community would do to aid the victims of an attack. Blair says treatment does exist for the effects of some of the chemical agents Syria is thought to possess depending on the severity of the impact. But nobody knows for sure that Syria has chemical weapons, or exactly what they have if they do possess them, he says.

The most treatable victims would be those that had quick access to international assistance in other words, the victims of an attack near one of Syrias borders. But Blair adds that such a step would almost certainly lead to outside intervention, starting with the country for example, Turkey whose border was affected by the attack.

Still, Blair is far from convinced that Assad would ever use the weapons saying that doing so would be suicidal, something Syrian officials acknowledge.

Assad may be up to something else altogether, Mr. Korb says: He might be using this as a bargaining chip to win himself free passage out of the country.

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Are you smarter than a US diplomat? Take our Foreign Service Exam. How deadly would chemical weapons in Syria be? Syria: first state with WMDs to topple? (+video) Syrian rebels riding momentum to Damascus Read this story at csmonitor.com

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SEATTLE (Reuters) - Washington state made history on Thursday as the first in the nation to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use, an occasion celebrated by dozens of users near Seattle's famed Space Needle amid blaring reggae music and a haze of pot smoke.

The pre-dawn public gathering defied a key provision of the state's landmark marijuana law, which allows possession of small amounts of marijuana but forbids users from lighting up outside the privacy of their homes.

The gathering also underscored mixed law enforcement messages about the statute. Hours earlier, Seattle's city attorney issued a stern warning that public pot puffing would not be tolerated and violators faced citations with $100 fines.

But the prosecutor's admonition was contradicted by the Seattle Police Department's own instructions to officers to limit their enforcement actions to warnings, at least for now.

The new law, passed by voters last month in a move that could set the state up for a showdown with the federal government, removes criminal sanctions for anyone 21 or older possessing 1 ounce (28.5 grams) or less of pot for personal use.

Colorado voters also chose to legalize pot for personal recreational use, but that measure is not due to take effect until next month. Both states are among 18 that have already removed criminal sanctions for medical use of marijuana.

The Washington law legalizes possession of up to 16 ounces (0.45 kg) of solid cannabis-infused goods - like brownies or cookies - and up to 72 ounces (2.4 kg) of weed in liquid form.

But driving under the influence of cannabis or imbibing in public places where the consumption of alcohol is already banned remain illegal.

"If you're smoking in plain public view, you're subject to a ticket," Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes told a news conference on Wednesday. "If drinking in public is disallowed, so is smoking marijuana in public."

'VICTORY FOR HEMP'

The new law ultimately will permit cannabis to be legally sold and taxed at state-licensed stores in a system to be modeled after those in many states for alcohol sales. The state Liquor Control Board, along with agriculture and public health officials, have until next December to set up such a system.

For now, it remains a crime to sell, cultivate or even share one's own stash, even though the law allows individuals to purchase a limited amount for personal possession.

Ironically, an early court challenge of the law came from a medical marijuana patient in Olympia, who filed suit last week seeking to block enforcement of a new standard for marijuana impairment while driving, similar to the blood-alcohol standard for drunken driving.

The plaintiff, Arthur West, says the new legal limit - 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood of THC, pot's active ingredient - would unfairly subject him to prosecution for a THC level at which he routinely drives without impairment. A hearing on his request for an injunction was set for Friday.

Little if any of the law's fine points seemed to matter to the mellow and largely middle-aged gathering of about 100 people near the foot of the Space Needle as the statute took effect at midnight.

Low-key cries of "Yeah!" and "Smoke some weed" and "Anybody got a bong?" rose after an Oregon radio personality, "Radical" Russ Belville, finished a 10-second countdown on a bullhorn.

Mike Momany, 61, wearing a black "Bad Pig" brand motorcycle jacket, said he was forming the Washington State Cannabis Tourism Association to promote pot tourism. Although he has smoked grass for 40 years, Momany said he had slowed his intake "because it makes me eat too much."

Another smoker, wearing sunglasses and calling himself "Professor Gizmo," 50, said: "Victory for hemp. If our forefathers could see us now."

No police were visible as the aroma of cannabis wafted through the air and Bob Marley music blared from loudspeakers. There were no immediate reports of any arrests.

Appeals to keep pot smoke indoors were expected to go unheeded again at a larger celebration by marijuana advocates planned for Thursday evening at the Space Needle.

Celebrations over pot legalization were later overshadowed by violence, as police said two masked men who tried to rob a large pot-growing operation in a residential garage were shot and killed outside of Tacoma.

LAID-BACK APPROACH

The Seattle Police Department publicized its laid-back pot enforcement directive on its "SPD Blotter" website on Wednesday, but advised against flagrantly lighting up in public.

"The police department believes that under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a Lord of the Rings marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to," the notice said.

While asserting that public pot use remained expressly prohibited, Seattle police said officers lacked clear enforcement authority and that it would take at least 30 days for legislation to be crafted enabling officers to cite violators.

In the meantime, in the spirit of the new law, "the department's going to give you a generous grace period to help you adjust to this brave, new and maybe kinda' stoned world we live in," the department's online message says.

Prosecutors in several counties said last month they were dismissing scores of misdemeanor marijuana possession cases in advance of the new law. But whether public or private, cannabis use violates federal law, which classifies marijuana as an illegal narcotic.

U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan in Seattle reiterated on Wednesday the U.S. Justice Department position that growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remained a federal crime, regardless of any changes in state law.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Kaminsky in Olympia; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Todd Eastham and Peter Cooney)

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