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World leaders eye sanctions against Iran

BRUSSELS, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Western leaders raised the possibility of sanctions against Iran if it continues to refuse to accept a draft agreement to export most of its enriched uranium.

"We are disappointed by the lack of follow-up" to the understanding reached in Geneva Oct. 1, the officials said Friday in a statement. The statement was issued in Brussels on behalf of the European Union, the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain.

The deal calls for Iran to remove about 2,600 pounds of lightly enriched uranium, an estimated 70 percent of its known supplies, to be processed in Russia and France into nuclear fuel for a reactor that makes medical isotopes, The New York Times reported.

But, the newspaper said, Iran says it won't export any uranium until it gets the fuel. That would defeat the purpose of exporting the uranium: to reduce Iran's nuclear stockpile below the amount necessary to make a nuclear weapon.

"There's a window of opportunity for Iran," Robert Wood, a deputy State Department spokesman, said in a briefing Friday. "That window is not going to be open forever. And if (Iran) doesn't respond to the calls of the international community for it to live up to its international obligations, then we will have to look at the pressure track."

Iran's foreign minister announced Wednesday that his country opposes the deal to have another country turn Iran's partially enriched uranium into material for medical research.

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed El Baradei, denied Friday that negotiations with Iran have fallen through, an agency spokesman told CNN.

"He is not ready to say it's over," the spokesman said, adding that the International Atomic Energy Agency has not received any written response from Iran.

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Wal-Mart fracas defendant cops a plea

KENNETT, Mo., Nov. 20 (UPI) -- The young woman accused of assaulting police during a fracas at a Missouri Wal-Mart pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace late Friday.

Heather Ellis's plea deal spares her a prison sentence, except for four days in jail the judge called "shock detention," the Daily Dunklin Democrat reported. She agreed to admit the two misdemeanor charges with a sentence of a year's unsupervised probation, a short anger-management class and payment of jury expenses.

Ellis entered the plea after the jury began deliberations. On the witness stand earlier, Ellis, who is black, denied attacking police and said they assaulted her and used racial slurs.

Ellis, a 24-year-old teacher, was a college student at the time of the 2007 incident. A prosecutor said she cut into the checkout line at a Wal-Mart in Kennett, used profanity while abusing employees, then attacked police when they were called.

She testified a police officer told her: "Look at this stupid (expletive). Take your (expletive) back to the ghetto."

Kennett, the Dunklin County seat, is a small city in southeastern Missouri with a shrinking population. About 13 percent of the residents are black, and the police department is overwhelmingly white.

In June, when Ellis supporters held a rally, police found cards reading: "You have been paid a social visit by the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The next visit will not be social."

Another rally Monday drew a small group of counter-protesters waving Confederate flags.

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Afghan MP survives convoy bombing

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- At least 25 people were killed in four bombings Friday in Afghanistan, including an attack on a politician who survived.

The wave of violence came the day after President Hamid Karzai was inaugurated to a second term.

Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, a former warlord who represents a Kabul district in Parliament and is a strong supporter of the president, was traveling in a convoy struck Friday evening on a road near Kabul. Five of his bodyguards died.

A suicide bomber struck early Friday in a busy market in Farah near the Iranian border, capital of the southwestern province of the same name, Voice of America reported. At least 16 people were killed and many others, including children, were injured in the bombing near the governor's residence, CNN reported.

"This was a malicious attack that killed and injured innocent Afghans," U.S. Navy Capt. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the multinational forces joint command, said in a statement. "Yesterday's presidential inauguration was a day of moving forward, and today's bombing shows the insurgents' unwillingness to allow Afghan citizens to move toward a peaceful, stable and prosperous future."

Four people were killed by two roadside bombs in the eastern part of the country.

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Dad: Mom sold girl to pay drug debt

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C., Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Shaniya Davis's father accused her mother Friday of selling the 5-year-old North Carolina girl for sex to support her drug habit.

In an interview on ABC's "The Oprah Winfrey Show," Bradley Lockhart said he had been told Antoinette Davis owed money for drugs.

Davis has been charged with child prostitution. Mario Andrette O'Neill, allegedly caught by a security camera carrying Shaniya into a room in a Sanford, N.C., hotel, faces rape and murder charges.

Shaniya's body was found Monday, almost a week after she disappeared, in a wooded area near Sanford.

In his interview with Winfrey, Lockhart said he fathered Shaniya in a one-night stand with Davis. When the girl was a year old, Davis asked him to provide a more stable life for Shaniya, he said, describing custody as a "verbal agreement between Antoinette and I."

"I am disgusted, but yet in so much pain at this point," an aunt, Carey Lockhart-Davis, told Winfrey. "She was such a vibrant child and such an important part of my life. And it's hard at this point to understand why someone would take this sweet blessing away from me."

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Catholic bishops pan Senate health bill

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- The nation's Catholic bishops Friday called the U.S. Senate healthcare reform bill an "enormous disappointment."

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a letter urging the Senate to amend the bill along the lines of the House version and keep in place the ban on taxpayer-funded elective abortions, protect access to healthcare for immigrants and ensure affordability.

"We believe healthcare legislation must respect the consciences of providers, taxpayers and others, not violate them," the bishops wrote. "We believe universal coverage should be truly universal, not deny healthcare to those in need because of their condition, age, where they come from or when they arrive here. Providing affordable and accessible healthcare that clearly reflects these fundamental principles is a public good, moral imperative and urgent national priority.

"Sadly, the legislative proposal recently unveiled in the Senate does not meet these moral criteria. Specifically, it violates the longstanding federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortions and health plans that include such abortions. ... We believe legislation that violates this moral principle is not true healthcare reform and must be amended to reflect it.

"On these various issues the new Senate bill is an enormous disappointment, creating new and completely unacceptable federal policy that endangers human life and rights of conscience."

The Catholic clerics also said the Senate bill would still leave more than 24 million people without coverage.

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Ashcroft: Tribunal right for terror trial

OVERLAND, Kan., Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Former Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday trying the alleged mastermind of the 2001 terrorist attacks in a U.S.civilian court risks national security.

Ashcroft gave a news conference during a trip to Overland Park, Kan., where he was helping Rep. Jim Tiahart, R-Kan., raise money for a run for the Senate, The Kansas City Star reported. He told reporters President Barack Obama must have approved the decision to transfer the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and five others from a military tribunal to the federal courts, because Attorney General Eric Holder does not have "the authority to order the Defense Department around."

A civilian court trial could be dangerous in several ways, Ashcroft said. He suggested important national security information might become public and New York might again be a target for a terrorist attack.

Osama bin Laden gleaned valuable information from the trial of the men responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ashcroft said.

Ashcroft was attorney general during President George W. Bush's first term. He had previously been governor of Missouri and a U.S. senator.