North Korea sends nuclear envoy to China

North Korea send his top nuclear envoy to Beijing on Tuesday to discuss restarting nuclear disarmament meeting, a day after pledging Pyongyang's commitment to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

Kim made the disarmament assurance during a summit Monday with a high-level envoy from Beijing at the start of a week of diplomacy intended to get the six-nation nuclear talks back on track. A high-level U.N. envoy also flew to Pyongyang on Tuesday for a four-day trip.
North Korea walked away from the talks last year during a confrontation over its nuclear and missile programs. The disarmament progression includes the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States.

However, has been reaching out to Washington, Seoul and Beijing in recent months, and has taken unsure steps toward discussing how to get the progression going again.

North Korea has made clear it wants U.N. sanctions lifted and a serenity treaty with Washington officially ending the 1950-1953 Korean War before it returns to the disarmament meeting. Pyongyang cites the U.S. military existence in South Korea as its main reason for building up its nuclear weapons program.

Washington says Pyongyang must come back to the talks first before any conversation about political and economic concessions.

UN appeals for $538M in Pakistan charitable aid

Aid groups in Pakistan need nearly $538 million more than the next six months to help hundreds of thousands of people displaced by army clashes against the Taliban, the U.N. said in an international appeal Tuesday.

The appeal comes as much of the world's notice is focused on helping earthquake-devastated Haiti and as security ruins tenancy along Pakistan's northwest border with Afghanistan.
A largely successful army offensive in the Swat Valley and surrounding districts has intended some 1.7 million people have returned home since being displaced last year, according to the U.N. Still, security in parts of the semiautonomous ancestral belt and other areas is weakening, leading to new internal refugees.

An estimated 1 million Pakistanis wait displaced. The majority of the refugees are staying with host families, but tens of thousands are in relief camps.

The U.N. came up with the $538 million outline after assessing the needs and goals of dozens of local and international aid agencies and the Pakistani administration. The biggest chunk of aid they requested, about $195 million, will pay for food for the displaced.

Last year, when the displacement crisis in Pakistan was at its peak, the U.N. and compassionate groups in the country managed to get $485 million of the $680 million they needed, the U.N. said.

The U.N. itself has not escaped the violence in Pakistan. Several of its employees have been killed or kidnapped over the past two years, leading it to suspend long-term progress work in Pakistan's northwest and shift some of its emigrant staff out of the country.

At least 28 Kill in Afghan avalanches

Avalanches on a mountain get ahead of north Kabul have killed at least 28 people, with another 1,500 trapped in their vehicles on snow-blocked roads.

The Afghan Defense Ministry released a statement saying another 70 people have been injured and transported to hospitals as the military and police continued rescue efforts to dig out those trapped in the snow.

The avalanches took place Monday subsequent heavy snows in the Salang Pass that links the Afghan capital with the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

In a statement, Karzai ordered the ministries of public works, defense and disaster control to "use all possible means to get the roads unblocked and rescue those trapped and stranded in the heavy snow."

About 100 Afghan soldiers were mobilized to join police and others in the rescue hard work, along with four helicopters, a number of ambulances and several bulldozers.
Rescuers worked throughout the night to save more than 200 people.

Military helicopters were tumbling food packages to people jammed on snow-blocked roads.
Earlier, Afghan reports said some 300 cars and buses were trapped on the mountain pass.

China finds 170 tons of infected milk powders

China has found another 170 more tons of infected milk powder in an emergency clearout that has made it increasingly clear many products revealed in the country's 2008 milk scandal were repackaged for sale as an alternative of destroyed.

The increasing number of cases in recent weeks challenges the government's previous promise to renovate its approach to food safety after hundreds of thousands of children in that scandal were dismayed by milk products infected with an industrial chemical. At least six children died.
Contaminated milk products have recently emerged in China's largest city, Shanghai, and in the provinces of Shaanxi, Shandong, Guizhou, Liaoning, Jilin and Hebei.

In the most recent discovery, officials recalled more than 170 tons of milk powder contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine and closed two dairy companies in the northern district of Ningxia, the China Daily newspaper reported Monday.

The report said officials detained 72 tons of the powder but were still looking for the rest, which had been repackaged by the Ningxia Tiantian Dairy Co. Ltd. and sold to factories in the neighboring region of Inner Mongolia and the bustling southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.

Instead, it issued guidelines on how to destroy the contaminated products, suggesting they be burned in incinerators or buried in landfills.

First woman president in Costa Rica landslide

Costa Ricans have selected their first woman president as the ruling party candidate won in a landslide after confrontation to continue free market policies in Central America's most stable nation.

With most of the votes from Sunday's election counted, Laura Chinchilla held a 22-point lead over her closest rival. Her 47 percent share of the vote was well beyond the 40 percent required to avoid a run-off.

The closest contender, Otton Solis of the Citizens Action Party, got 25 percent of the votes. He and the other main opponent, Libertarian Otto Guevara, rapidly conceded defeat.

It was unclear, however, whether Chinchilla's National Liberation Party would gain a majority in congress.

Iran official said - increase uranium enrichment

A senior Iranian envoy says he has officially told the U.N. nuclear agency that his country will enrich uranium to high levels.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh says Tehran will begin enriching up to 20 percent from its present stock of lower enriched uranium.

Soltanieh is Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. He told that the manufacture is meant for fuel for Iran's research reactor, which produces medical isotopes. World powers fear higher enrichment could ease the way for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

Iran has disregarded five U.N. Security Council resolutions that it freezes its enrichment program.

15 soldiers, 17 injured, 53 rescued - Indian army training center - Kashmir

At least 15 soldiers have been killed and 17 others seriously injured after a massive avalanche hit an Indian army training center at a ski resort township in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Senior police officer Qayoom Manhas tells 53 troops have been rescued six hours after the speeding mass of snow and ice struck the middle high on a Himalayan slope.

Manhas says rescuers are looking for two more soldiers gone and feared buried under the snow.
The accident occurred near Gulmarg, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir.

US believing Mehsud is dead

U.S. counterterrorism officials trust Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead subsequent a missile attack last month, a senior intelligence official said Wednesday in the strongest gesture that Washington has offered about the militant's fate.

Neither Pakistan nor the U.S. has officially confirmed the death of Hakimullah Mehsud, who commands an al-Qaida-allied association that is blamed for scores of suicide bombings and is alleged in a deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan late last year.

Hakimullah Mehsud's death would be the newest successful strike against alleged terrorists by the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. has recently stepped up attacks from unmanned aircraft in Pakistan, and a closer alliance with Yemen has led to recent airstrikes there. President Barack Obama tinted the mounting success of such attacks in his State of the Union address last week.
Baitullah Mehsud's death gave headship of the Pakistani Taliban to his deputy, Hakimullah Mehsud, a 28 year old with repute as a particularly merciless militant.

He has taken conscientiousness for a wave of blatant strikes inside Pakistan, including the bombing of the treasure Continental hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar last June and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore before that year. There is a $590,000 bounty on his head.

Haiti death toll rose as 200000

The death toll in the Haiti quake has increased to 200,000, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said as angry protests over the slow coming of aid flared on the rubble-strewn streets.
More than 3 weeks after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake, Bellerive said his small Caribbean nation had been ravaged by "a disaster on a terrestrial scale" and detailed the awful toll suffered by his people.

"There are more than 200,000 people who have been obviously identified as people who are dead," adding that another 300,000 injured had been treated, 250,000 houses had been destroyed and 30,000 businesses lost.

At least 4,000 amputations have also been passed out due to horrendous crush injuries -- a shocking figure which is likely to damage the impoverished nation's already meager resources for years to come.

Toyota earned $1.7B profit, annual forecast raised

Toyota Motor Corporation. Returned to profit in the October-December quarter and raised its annual earnings forecast. The world's No. 1 automaker reported a quarterly net profit of 153.2 billion yen ($1.7 billion) and cited stronger sales of the Prius and other "green" models, as well as a recovery in the Japan and U.S. It reported a 164.7 billion yen loss in the same quarter a year earlier.

The results don't reflect the hurt from the massive recalls linked to faulty gas pedals, announced Jan. 21. The suspension of U.S. sales of eight of its most popular models, repair costs for the recall and a consumer reaction are expected to undermine earnings in the current quarter and possibly into next fiscal year.

Toyota for the first time gave an estimation of the costs of the global recall at up to 180 billion yen ($2 billion), with 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) for repairs and 70 billion yen ($770 million) to 80 billion yen ($880 million) in lost sales.

It said the recalls could dent global demand for Toyota models by 100,000 vehicles.

World's Five of the Most Beautiful Cities

1. Paris

2. San Francisco

3. Sydney

4. Florence

5. Cape Town

Justin Michael Mentell killed in car (SUV) crash

Justin Michael Mentell (December 16, 1982) was an American artist and actor.
Justin Michael Mentell was an American actor who appeared on the TV show Boston Legal has been killed in an SUV crash in Wisconsin. Justin, 27, was killed when his SUV went down a highway mound near Blanchardville. Justin Mentell, who wasn't wearing a seat belt, was on Boston Legal from 2005 to 2006.

The Milli Vanilli biopic is moving ahead with help from the fake music group's Fabrice (Fab) Morvan, who was awarded the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1990 with Milli Vanilli partner Rob Pilatus. "We wanted to give the Grammy back" after it was revealed they were lip-synching, Morvan said.

Sandra Annette Bullock nominated as Oscar award winner on Tuesday

Sandra Annette Bullock (born July 26, 1964) is an American actress who came to eminence in the 1990s, after roles in successful films such as Speed and While You Were Sleeping. She has since established her career with films such as Miss Congeniality and Crash, which received critical acclaim. In 2007, she was ranked as the 14th richest female celebrity with an estimated fortune of $85 million.

Sandra, best known for romantic comedies like "Two Weeks Notice" and "Miss Congeniality" initially balked at portraying a real person in the drama "The Blind Side" but the role brought Bullock her first Oscar nomination on Tuesday.
Sandra's change of gear in "The Blind Side" has brought her a slew of honors, including a Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe award.

Now the 45-year-old actress stands on the precipice of winning the movie industry's highest honor for her performance as a prosperous, strong-willed Christian mom who takes a homeless black high school football player into her family.

She thanked the movie's director, John Lee Hancock, and producer, Gil Netter, and the other Oscar-nominated actresses who include veterans Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren.

NASA’s Space Shuttle Mission: STS-130

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, prelaunch actions are in full roll this week with the official launch countdown to space shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 mission set to begin at 2 a.m. EST Feb. 4.

Teams at Launch Pad 39A will be stuffing the astronauts' spacesuits into Endeavour today.

Meanwhile, the six STS-130 crew members who will fly to the International Space Station entered quarantine yesterday and now are on a sleep schedule to match their evening and overnight work hours during the mission. They will conduct final incorporated ascent training in the motion base simulator today at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and will be flying to Kennedy tomorrow night.

Last week, a water suppression system pipe leaked at Kennedy's Launch Control Center and workers have made steps forward during the weekend drying walls and carpets. This leak is not expected to hamper the liftoff of Endeavour at 4:39 a.m. EST Feb. 7.

USA President Obama says help haiti

USA President Obama has been receiving updates on the urgent situation in Haiti late into last night and throughout the day, and top members of his team have been convening to formulate the government response.

People also help immediately by donating to the Red Cross to help out the relief effort. Contribute online to the Red Cross, or donate $10 to be charged to your cell phone bill by texting "HAITI" to "90999." Find more ways to help through the Center for International Disaster Information.

Families of Americans living in Haiti are encouraged to contact the State Department at 888-407-4747.

Update: Watch the President's remarks from Wednesday morning below, or read the transcript.

Roger Federer (SUI) : 268 - ATP ranking

Roger reached 268 weeks as number one of the ATP ranking today and has thus leveled Jimmy Connors' best mark.

ATP ranking

1. Pete Sampras (USA) : 286
2. Ivan Lendl (CZE/USA) : 270
3. Jimmy Connors (USA) and Roger Federer (SUI) : 268
5. John McEnroe (USA) : 170
6. Björn Borg (SWE) : 109
7. Andre Agassi (USA) : 101
8. Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) : 80
9. Stefan Edberg (SWE) : 72
10. Jim Courier (USA) : 58