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Bodies found from Ethiopian plane crash

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Crews recovered 23 bodies from an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea Monday with 90 people aboard, officials said.

Officials said they didn't know what caused the Boeing aircraft to crash off the Lebanese coast after departing Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut in stormy weather for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, CNN reported.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced a day of mourning for the crash victims, ordering government departments to close, the Lebanese National News Agency said.

The airplane, with 82 passengers and eight crew members, disappeared from radar a few minutes after takeoff, said Lebanese Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi El Aridi. The crash occurred about 2 miles west of the town of Na'ameh, 9 miles south of Beirut.

"We don't believe that there is any indication for sabotage or foul play," Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said.

An airline official said investigators were sent to the scene.

More than half the people on the flight were Lebanese, and 23 passengers were Ethiopian, The New York Times reported. Two British nationals were listed as passengers, and the remaining passengers were Turkish, French, Russian, Canadian, Syrian and Iraqi citizens, the airline said. Several media reports said Marla Sanchez Pietton, the wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon, Denis Pietton, was on the plane.

The crew members were Ethiopian.

Suleiman said Lebanese Army helicopters and naval ships working with personnel from the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon in the search under what he called " extremely difficult weather."

The Times said African airlines do not have a good safety record generally, but Ethiopian Airlines does.

Haitian quake sparks immigration debate

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- A debate is brewing over whether the U.S. government should let more Haitians come to the United States in the wake of the ruinous earthquake in Haiti.

Immigration advocates and several members of Congress are pushing for the departments of Homeland Security and State to relax the rules on Haitians coming to the United States, in part to ease relief efforts after the Jan. 12 earthquake, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Focus so far is on Haitians with relatives legally in the United States and injured children who relief doctors said could die without complicated medical treatment unavailable in Haiti, officials said.

Shortly after the quake, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the government would allow Haitian children already on the verge of adoption to enter and would allow Haitians in the United States illegally to stay for 18 months.

Advocates are pushing for Haitians who, before the earthquake, applied for a visa available to foreign relatives of U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents. Homeland Security said 19,000 Haitians have pending applications for the visa. The State Department said nearly 55,000 Haitians have been approved for family visas but are wait-listed because of annual quotas, the Post reported.

Even if visas were approved more quickly, the number of Haitians permitted to enter the country wouldn't change unless Congress alters the quotas, officials from the two departments said.

Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser in President George W. Bush's administration now at the Council on Foreign Relations, said if, for the next five years, the United States doubled the 25,000 Haitians who come to the United States, money sent to the country would increase, providing critical help to the nation's rebuilding effort. Abrams suggested the United States could offset the influx of Haitians by temporarily slowing immigration from elsewhere.

Officials warn of botox-based bioweapons

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Terrorists are exploiting a surging black market for the popular anti-wrinkle drug botox to develop bioterrorism weapons, experts say.

Al-Qaida is known to be seeking the deadly botulinum toxin that comprises the active ingredient in botox, and officials say they believe terrorists in Chechnya and elsewhere have established illegal factories to churn out the raw toxin, The Washington Post reported.

Kenneth Coleman, a physician and biodefense expert, told the newspaper his research indicates a biologist, a modest means and education could easily tap the counterfeit botox market to manufacture a gram of pure toxin, which would be sufficient to kill thousands of people.

The Post said the black market for botox has spawned vast illicit networks of suppliers who mostly work online and don't demand prescriptions or identification.

"There are no major obstacles," said Coleman, who authored a study for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "It's not that hard to acquire the bacterial strains. But you don't even have to make it. You can buy it from existing manufacturers. And you can buy it in sufficient quantity to cause widespread harm."

Medvedev: START pact nearly a done deal

MOSCOW, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- An arms reduction deal with the United States is near, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says.

Medvedev, speaking to reporters in Moscow Sunday, said most of issues standing in the way of a new document to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START 1, have been worked out, RIA Novosti reported.

"Ninety-five percent of issues have been coordinated. I have rather optimistic expectations regarding the treaty," Medvedev said. "As regards the document, President (Barack) Obama and I clearly outlined the limits -- what we may not do and what they may not do. Everything is clear here."

START 1 expired on Dec. 5, and a replacement treaty had reportedly been delayed by disagreements over verification and control arrangements.

The Russian news agency says the prospective deal envisions cutting nuclear arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 operational warheads and delivery vehicles to between 500 and 1,000.

Two Gaza border crossings opened

GAZA, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Two border crossings from Israel into the sealed-off Gaza Strip were opened Monday to allow in humanitarian aid, Palestinian media reported.

The Ma'an news agency said the Kerem Shalom border crossing in Gaza's southern end was opened and is expected to receive 58 to 68 truckloads of humanitarian aid and agricultural goods, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

The Palestinian news agency also reported an estimated 96 truckloads of wheat and animal feed along with smaller amounts of gas and industrial fuel will enter Gaza through the Karni crossing in the enclave's north.

Ma'an reported electrical generators were idled Sunday for lack of fuel.