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Netanyahu calls for peace with Syria

JERUSALEM, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Sunday said his nation desires peace with Syria rather than mutual threats of attack.

Speaking at the opening of his weekly Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said Israel had signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and wished to do with Syria and the Palestinians.

Turkish-mediated talks between Syria and Israel stalled last year, with tensions spiking last week after aggressive comments from ministers in each country, The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said Israeli cities would suffer in a military confrontation with Syria, while Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned the Assad regime would not survive combat.

"When the Syrian foreign minister says that they will attack population centers in Israel, that is crossing a red line," Lieberman said.

In an editorial Sunday, Syria's official newspaper, Tishreen, said Damascus wanted peace with Israel but was also prepared for war.

Ahmadinejad orders uranium enrichment

TEHRAN, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday ordered his nation's atomic energy agency to begin enriching uranium to 20 percent.

Ahmadinejad made the announcement during a live broadcast with Iranian energy head Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's state-run Press TV reported.

"Please start 20 percent enrichment, though we are still in talks about a fuel exchange," he told Salehi. "We are ready for exchange. But if (Western countries) don't like an exchange, we go our own way."

Ahmadinejad made the announcement a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed skepticism that Iran would agree to exchange the bulk of its uranium supply for fuel for its medical reactor in Tehran.

The plans aims to keep Iran from processing its own uranium and provide international oversight. Western nations fear Iran is trying to develop atomic weapons.

Iran has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful and the 20 percent enriched uranium is to be used to aid thousands of Iranian patients in need of post-surgery drug treatment with nuclear medicine.

To enrich uranium, ore is purified into solid "yellowcake," which is processed into uranium hexaflouride gas that is fed through centrifuges that separate isotopes and increase enrichment.

Uranium used for civil energy production needs to be enriched to about 3 percent, while weapons grade uranium must be enriched to 90 percent.

Exploitation of Haitian children increases

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Haiti's earthquake has increased the risk of some orphanages being used as providers of child servants and sex slaves, authorities said.

The problems of Haiti's overwhelmed child welfare system have intensified since the quake, with suspect orphanages exploiting children through organized criminal networks, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The quake drove hundreds of thousands of people from their damaged homes, with many families surrendering children to orphanages ranging from well-equipped buildings with international financing to one-room shacks.

The arrest last weekend of 10 U.S. citizens trying to leave Haiti with 33 children focused attention on the issue. While there is no evidence the Americans intended harm, their case showed how it easy it was for children to be rounded up and taken away, the Times said.

"There are many so-called orphanages that have opened in the last couple of years that are not really orphanages at all," said Frantz Thermilus, the chief of Haiti's National Judicial Police.

UNICEF estimates tens of thousands of Haitian children are sold each year as servants, sex slaves and farm workers to well-off Haitian families and for work in the neighboring Dominican Republic and other countries.

Fire kills four adults and baby girl

WARWICK, R.I., Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A smoldering fire killed four people in their 20s and a 7-month-old girl in a two-story home in Warwick, R.I., emergency officials said.

The dead included Amanda L. Villeneuve, 21, the mother of the 7-month-girl named Annabelle, and Nicholas Jillson, 24, the brother of former Boston Bruin hockey player Jeff Jillson, Fire Chief Kevin Sullivan said.

The home was owned by James Weeden, warden of the maximum security section of the state prison in Cranston, The Providence (R.I.) Island Journal reported Sunday.

Weeden was not in the house when the fire broke out Saturday.

The victims were found unconscious on the second floor of the home and could not be revived, Sullivan said.

The fire, which may have smoldered for hours, was reported by a caller who said he had been asleep on the first floor when a burning piece of the ceiling fell down.

The fire was not suspicious and it was not immediately known if the home had fire alarms, the report said.