Threats issued by the global arrogance (forces of Imperialism) against Iran will redouble the nation’s determination to make progress, Larijani stated.

Simultaneous attacks on mostly Shia targets across Iraq killed a total of 55 people and wounded 225.

Iraq’s al-Qaeda branch has claimed responsibility for the bombings, AP reported on Friday.

The government’s top goal: Find some effective ways to treat Alzheimer’s by 2025. That is an ambitious quest. Today’s treatments only temporarily ease symptoms. Scientists know that Alzheimer’s brews for years before symptoms appear, but work to find better medications or at least stall the disease’s emergence has been frustratingly slow.

Whether scientists can meet that deadline or not, the first draft of the National Alzheimer’s Plan also makes clear that overwhelmed families need help right away to care for affected loved ones.

Moreover, as many as half of today’s Alzheimer’s sufferers have not been formally diagnosed, and the draft in part blames stigma and misinformation.

Among the draft’s planned steps:

— A major public awareness campaign to help people know the early warning signs of Alzheimer’s and what to do.

— Educate doctors and other health workers about how to recognize Alzheimer’s, what medications are available now that can help with the disease’s symptoms, and what social services may help families to cope.

— Improve early detection, in part by determining the best cognitive screening to offer during Medicare’s new annual wellness visit.

— Improve training of caregivers, so they know what resources are available and how to handle common behavior problems of dementia. Research shows that caregivers given such training are able to keep their loved ones at home for far longer.

— Study how to address the health needs of stressed and isolated caregivers.

Then there’s the goal of better treatments. The National Institutes of Health spends about US$450 million a year on dementia research. This month, the Obama administration announced it would add an extra US$50 million to that tab this year, and seek US$80 million more to spend on Alzheimer’s research in 2013.

It plans to spend about US$26 million on some of the plan’s other provisions.

For comparison, the government spends nearly US$3 billion on AIDS research; about 1.1 million Americans are living with the AIDS virus.

Wednesday’s draft is open for public comment through March, and the government’s Alzheimer’s advisory council is sure to make changes before a final strategy is issued this year. But some of the work is not waiting: The NIH, for example, is bringing together top Alzheimer’s scientists in May to discuss the most promising leads for better treatment.

Some members of that advisory council called the draft a good first step.

“They’ve covered the right topics. What is needed now is more detail,” said Alzheimer’s Association President Harry Johns. “There’s real recognition at this point that Alzheimer’s is devastating for not only the individual but for the families and caregivers.”

Colvin, 56, died alongside French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, the French government announced. Freelance photographer Paul Conroy and journalist Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro were wounded.

Colvin, from East Norwich, New York, had been a foreign correspondent for Britain’s Sunday Times for more than 25 years, making a specialty of reporting from the world’s most dangerous places. The newspaper posted her final dispatch outside the website’s paywall, so anyone could read her account from a cellar offering refuge for women and children. The report chronicled the horrors that eventually took her own life.

“It is a city of the cold and hungry, echoing to exploding shells and bursts of gunfire,” Colvin wrote. “There are no telephones and the electricity has been cut off … Freezing rain fills potholes and snow drifts in through windows empty of glass. No shops are open, so families are sharing what they have with relatives and neighbors. Many of the dead and injured are those who risked foraging for food.

“Fearing the snipers’ merciless eyes, families resorted last week to throwing bread across rooftops, or breaking through communal walls to pass unseen.”

Colvin often focused on the plight of women and children in wartime, and Syria was no different. She gave interviews to major British broadcasters on the eve of her death, appealing for the world to notice the slaughter taking place.

“I watched a little baby die today,” she told the BBC on Tuesday. “Absolutely horrific, a 2-year old child had been hit. They stripped it and found the shrapnel had gone into the left chest and the doctor said ‘I can’t do anything.’ His little tummy just kept heaving until he died.”

In the 1990s, Colvin worked in the Balkans, where she went on patrol with the Kosovo Liberation Army as it engaged Serb military forces. She worked in Chechnya, where she came under fire from Russian jets while reporting on Chechen rebels seeking independence for their region. She also covered the conflict in East Timor after its people voted for independence in Southeast Asia.

“I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident,” Obama wrote in the letter presented to Karzai by U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker. “I extend to you and the Afghan people my sincere apologies.”

“The error was inadvertent; I assure you that we will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible,” the letter said.

Karzai told members of parliament that a U.S. officer was responsible for the burning that was done “out of ignorance,” his office said.

The incident at the U.S. military base at Bagram north of Kabul sparked three days of fierce anti- U.S. protests in which at least 12 protesters were killed.

Two American soldiers also died when an Afghan army colleague turned his weapon on them as demonstrators approached a U.S. base in eastern Nangarhar province Thursday, the military and officials said.

“As the protesters approached the American base here an ANA (Afghan) soldier in the base opened fire on American soldiers, killing two soldiers,” said the district chief of Khogyani in eastern Nangarhar province, Mohammad Hassan.

The shooter then escaped among the crowd while two protesters were killed and six wounded when the foreign soldiers returned fire, Hassan said.

NATO’s U.S.-led International Security Assistance force had announced the deaths of two soldiers at the hands of a man in Afghan army uniform, without identifying their nationalities.

The attack came just hours after Taliban insurgents urged Afghans to kill foreign troops to avenge the burning of the Qurans.

Afghanistan is a deeply religious country where slights against Islam have frequently provoked violent protests, and many Afghans are incensed at the discovery of charred Qurans at the Bagram base.

Reportedly Iran rejected the request.

Ban said, “Although like always in the past the UN supports Tehran’s cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, I believe the UNSC big five should end useless wordplay on Iran’s nuclear program and focus on constructive negotiations with Tehran in upcoming round of 5+1G talks with Iran.”

China and Russia maintain that there is no evidence that Iran’s nuclear program is diverted to nuclear weapons production. Germany has also adopted a less hostile attitude toward Iran compared to those of Britain and France.

However, the U.S. has always been creating commotion about Iran’s nuclear activities.

The main bone of contention between Tehran and the West is Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Iran says all its nuclear activities are totally peaceful, and, as an IAEA member and a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signatory, it has the legal right to produce nuclear fuel for its research reactors and nuclear power plants.

“For two decades Somalia has been torn apart by famine, bloodshed and some of the worst poverty on earth,” Cameron said, as he opened the talks.

“Pirates are disrupting vital trade routes and kidnapping tourists. Young minds are being poisoned by radicalism, breeding terrorism that is threatening the security of the whole world,” he told delegates. “If the rest of us just sit back and look on, we will pay a price for doing so.”

Somalia has had transitional administrations for the past seven years, but has not had a functioning central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a longtime dictator and turned on each other, plunging the nation into two decades of chaos.

The weak U.N.-backed administration — which holds the capital, Mogadishu, with the support of about 12,000 African Union soldiers — has been boosted by recent offensives against the al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab. The U.N. Wednesday approved an increase in the size of the AU peacekeeping mission — known as AMISOM — to about 17,700.

Despite tentative signs of progress, security officials warn of a continuing threat from Islamic militants who some fear could export terrorism to Europe and the United States.

Pirates continue to disrupt international shipping off Somalia’s coast, and currently hold seven vessels and 191 hostages. Ransoms last year cost the shipping industry about US$135 million.

Western nations hope the conference will encourage greater support for Somalia from the Arab world — and more prominent leadership from nations including Turkey and Qatar. Ban said that Turkey would host a follow-up summit on Somalia’s future in June.

Clinton said Somalia’s leaders must be offered help to plan the transfer of power to a stable government, with the transitional authority’s mandate due to expire in August.

“The Transitional Federal Government was always meant to be just that, transitional. It is past time for that transition to occur, and for Somalia to have a stable government,” Clinton said.

She also ruled out negotiations with militants, despite some calls to include al-Shabab — which holds territory in central and southern Somalia — in the nation’s political process.

Somalis “have heard many promises, and have seen many deadlines come and go. It’s time to buckle down and do the work that will bring stability to Somalia for the first time in many of its people’s lives,” she said.

Leaders of the breakaway republic of Somaliland attended the talks, but did not win the international recognition they crave.

Britain pledged US$80 million over three years for Somali refugees in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, while the U.S. said it would offer an extra US$64 million in humanitarian assistance to Horn of Africa countries.

The United Arab Emirates said it would provide US$15 million to strengthen the Seychelles Coast Guard, while Cameron said the UK would fund a new anti-piracy intelligence coordination center in the Seychelles.

Germany said it was giving 6 million euros (US$7.9 million) to aid organizations to help care for displaced Somalis, while Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands also pledged funding.

They said that reforms in Syria should be implemented by the Syrians themselves and that Iran and Russia should make more efforts to prevent outsiders from dragging Syria into a civil war.

Ahmadinejad said that Tehran and Moscow should use their close relations to help resolve the situation.

Medvedev, according to a translation of his comments, stated that Syria’s national sovereignty should be respected, adding that Iran and Russia can take effective steps to help alleviate the crisis.

The Iranian and Russian presidents also called for the continuation of consultations between the two countries on developments in regional countries, particularly in Syria.

Leighton said he struck down the state rule because it trampled on pharmacists’ right to “conscientious objection.”

The ruling only applies to Washington state but is sure to reverberate nationally, as it comes in the midst of a roiling political debate about a new federal regulation mandating that all health insurance plans — even those sponsored by religious employers — provide free birth control.

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, a Democrat who had pushed for the pharmacy mandate, said the judge’s ruling left her concerned that some women will be denied timely access to emergency contraception.

Gregoire said she saw “strong arguments” for an appeal of the ruling, though she said no decision had been made.

The lawsuit was brought by a drugstore owner in Olympia, Washington, and two of his pharmacists, all of whom shared the religious conviction that emergency contraceptives are tantamount to abortion because they can block a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.

They refused to stock or dispense the medication, often referred to as the “morning-after pill” or by the brand name Plan B, and sued to block the regulation.

In his 48-page opinion, Leighton noted that Washington permitted pharmacy owners to decide against stocking certain medications for any number of “secular reasons” — because they are expensive, for example, or inconvenient to dispense, or because they simply don’t fit into the store’s business plan. Yet the rule did not allow pharmacists to assert a religious reason for keeping certain drugs off their shelves.

“A pharmacy is permitted to refuse to stock oxycodone because it fears robbery, but the same pharmacy cannot refuse to stock Plan B because it objects on religious grounds,” the judge wrote. “Why are these reasons treated differently under the rules?”