Russia to bow out of 1995 deal banning arms trade with Iran

RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER Igor Ivanov informed the United States in early November that beginning December 1 Russia will withdraw from a 1995 agreement not to sell arms to Iran. The Clinton administration, which defended the agreement against strong Republican attacks in October, warned Russia it could face sanctions if it signs new arms agreements with Tehran. U.S. and Russian government experts will meet in Moscow the first week of December to discuss the issue.

Russia signed a June 1995 agreement with the United States to stop selling arms to Iran and to complete the delivery of all weapons previously sold to Iran by the end of 1999. Officially termed an "aide memoire," the …

Oscar-winning scribe Kaufman debuts as director

Did you hear the one about the starlet who was so stupid she had sex with a screenwriter?

Charlie Kaufman doesn't find that old Hollywood joke funny.

The Oscar-winning scribe of 2004's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" says he's felt fulfilled as a writer, so he didn't feel the need to use that pursuit as a steppingstone to directing; plus, he's never seen those jobs "as a hierarchical thing the way people in the business do ... I think that they're very different jobs, and I don't think directing is more important than writing. I think that you could make an argument in the converse_ not that I would, but you could, but no one …

Volunteers join forces to brighten up scout hut

A lack of youth facilities in Glastonbury and a desire to make adifference brought together a group of volunteers last weekend.

The group, made up mostly of Sky engineers but with a smatteringof help from Cubs, Scouts and their parents gave up the best part oftheir weekend to brighten up the scout hut in Glastonbury.

It was the brainchild of Simon Hulford, a Sky engineer.

"Basically, people see us out and about in the vans, and we'vebecome a part of the community," he said.

"So every now and then, we like to get out and do little thingsfor the community."

The team had already carried out a similar project for Scouts inYeovil, and it was …

North Korea Gets Oil for Closing Reactor

SEOUL, South Korea - U.N. inspectors arrived in North Korea on Saturday to monitor the communist country's long-anticipated promise to scale back its nuclear weapons program.

An initial shipment of oil aid arrived hours earlier in return for Pyongyang's pledge to close down its main nuclear reactor. The expected move would be the North's first step in nearly five years toward the de-nuclearization of the peninsula.

The 10-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency was expected to head to Yongbyon, about 60 miles northeast of the capital, later Saturday to begin monitoring the shutdown of the North's plutonium-producing reactor.

After years of …

Iraqi Assyrians cling to roots even far from home

Isaac Samow's ancestors have occupied Mesopotamia for millennia, surviving innumerable conquests and massacres.

The headstones in the cemetery of his hometown near Mosul, Iraq, document centuries of his family's history there, and the ancient ruins that dot the arid plain near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers tell of his people's role in building humanity's first cities.

Yet another war is now threatening the survival of Assyrian culture and language _ a derivation of the tongue spoken by Jesus _ in its native land.

Among the first converts to Christianity, thousands of Assyrians have fled since the U.S. invasion. Samow's relatives are scattered …

Adopted kids mini-ambassadors come Lunar New Year

NEW YORK (AP) — With its fireworks, family reunions and feasts, Lunar New Year is the longest and most important celebration for millions around the world.

For kids adopted from China, it holds special meaning. Lunar New Year makes them mini-ambassadors of a culture they know little about firsthand.

There's no official handbook on how far parents of internationally adopted children should go to celebrate their kids' birth cultures, but marking Lunar New Year — Year of the Dragon begins Jan. 23 — is usually one of those times for Asian children.

Their parents decorate front doors, throw dumpling-making parties and stuff red envelopes with money. They clean their homes at …

TRUE CRIME

This is the place, Boise, Idaho.

We live here ... we're Boiseans.

The stories you are about to read are true.

HOW TO GET YOUR MUGS THEIR WHITEST

What's wrong with these pictures? Those dead-looking eyes that don't quite look in the same direction, her eerily realistic hair and oversized glasses, his over-shaped nose ... yes, it can only mean that the Boise Police Department has taken to using computer programs-like those featured in the "If They Mated" sketch on Late Night With Conan O'Brien-to make their suspect composite sketches.

Two 20-somethings with mugs resembling these are suspected of robbing a laundromat on South Abbs Street near Overland Road …