All Blog Posts from World Watch

Iran has experimented with a nuclear warhead design so advanced, it's still a secret in both the U.S. and Britain, according to a report in Friday's Guardian.

The British newspaper reports that intelligence suggesting the isolated Islamic regime tested components of a "two-point implosion" warhead has been handed over to Iran by the U.N. nuclear watchdog as part of a dossier of matters requiring explanation.

Parts of the International Atomic Energy Agency's dossier has been published in the past, but this is the first claim that Iran has sought such advanced weaponry — a claim nuclear experts called "breathtaking" when asked by the Guardian.

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Updated 2:28 p.m. EDT

The New York Times reported Wednesday that brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been on the CIA payroll for at least eight years, according to American officials.

Ahmed Wali Karzai (at left) is a powerful figure in the southern Kandahar province with reported ties to Afghanistan's opium trade, which is owned and operated largely by the Taliban.

According to the Times' sources, who were not named, Karzai has received "regular payments" from the American foreign spy agency in exchange for his organizing a paramilitary force in Kandahar which operates at the CIA's behest.

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This story was filed by CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer in Vienna. CBSNews.com's Tucker Reals in London contributed to the report.

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Updated, 7:59 a.m. Eastern:

Diplomats from Iran, the U.S., Russia and France agreed Wednesday to a draft proposal that would see Iran ship about 75 percent of it's enriched uranium to Russia by the end of this year.

Each nation's government will still need to ratify the agreement individually by Friday, and it's unclear whether Iran's hard-line rulers intend to do so.

Iran's envoy was upbeat following the morning talks. Lead negotiator Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters upon emerging from the closed door meetings that a side deal attached to the proposal includes an historic first: a proposed direct transfer of U.S. nuclear technology to Iran, including "control, instrument and safety equipment" for the research reactor at Tehran University.

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Israel has unexpectedly released two Syrian men who spent 25 years in Israeli jails, the longest terms ever served by Syrians in custody of the Jewish state, Syria's state-run news agency reported Friday.

Bisher Suleiman Ahmad Maqt, 44, was freed suddenly despite having 12 years left to serve on his sentence. Also released was Assem Mahmud Ahmed Wali, who had two years left.

It was not clear yet why the men were released and whether the move was connected with an expected prisoner exchange between Israel and the Islamic fundamentalist movement Hamas, which is holding captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit inside the Gaza Strip.

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The Pakistani Taliban was quick to claim responsibility for Thursday's attacks in both the northwestern Kohat region and in the capital city of the Punjab province, Lahore.

A senior militant commander in the Taliban stronghold of Waziristan, along the border with Afghanistan, claimed in a phone call to CBS News Sami Yousafzai just hours after those devastating attacks that 20 cells, each consisting of between five and 20 militants, had been established in the Punjab province to carry out a wave of attacks over the next two months.

While senior intelligence officials in the Pakistani capital and foreign diplomats strongly dispute the claim that the Taliban has gained the ability to plan and execute major attacks in the Punjab, the Taliban's claim is indicative of a fast-growing threat to Pakistan's most densely populated province.

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The White House has dismissed a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation that President Obama might announce an additional surge of troops — likely between 40,000 and 45,000 as early as next week.

The BBC's "Newsnight" program reported Wednesday night that Mr. Obama has already made his decision, informed the British government that a significant troop increase was coming, and that he may seek to make the announcement publically ahead of a NATO defense ministers' meeting in Slovakia next week.

Newsnight, a well-regarded hard-news magazine show, did not name sources for its report.

The White House was quick to tell the BBC that the claim was incorrect, and that the Mr. Obama was still in the highly publicized decision-making process about how to alter the American war strategy in Afghanistan.

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Parents, schools and doctors across the United Kingdom were on alert Tuesday after a 14-year-old English girl died from what appears to have been an extremely rare, severe reaction to the now-common cervical cancer vaccine.

The girl became ill soon after receiving the injection to prevent sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) on Monday at her school in Coventry, central England. She died in hospital just hours later.

She was given a vaccine called Cervarix manufactured by British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline.

CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton says that is not the shot commonly given to American girls, who are usually immunized with a drug made by Merck.

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Just for the record, the British and American governments would like you all to know that President Obama and Prime Minister Brown get along just fine. They are good pals and have nothing but respect and admiration for each other, both in their personal and professional capacities.

Both governments are going out of their way to make that point Thursday morning after the latest eruption of indignation by the British press about Mr. Obama "snubbing" the U.K. leader on their simultaneous visit to New York.

"Angry Barack Obama rebuffs Gordon Brown," reads the headline in the conservative-leaning Telegraph. "Brown snubbed by Obama over private talks," was the more liberal Guardian's take.

According to British media, the White House rejected at least five requests for a bilateral meeting between Brown and Mr. Obama on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations General Assembly. An ominous sign, the reports scare Britons into thinking, for the long-touted "special relationship" between the two allies.

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On Friday, a German ground commander called in a U.S. airstrike on two stolen fuel tankers in northern Afghanistan. Dozens of civilians had gathered around the tankers and Afghan officials say 70 or more were killed by the American bombs.

Official investigations have ramped-up to determine which of the two NATO allies — German or the U.S. — made the tragic error that led to the misguided strike, but the real consequences won't wait for those findings. Nor can the real work to try and make amends to the Afghan people.

CBS News consultant Jere Van Dyk says it really doesn't make any difference whom, exactly, is to blame for the airstrike. In the minds of most Afghans, "they are all infidels, they're all outsiders and they're all suspect."

"What the United States has to do, regardless of who fired the weapons, is to show that they're sorry, that they care," said Van Dyk, "because every time you kill anybody on the ground - every cousin, every brother, every uncle, every father is now fodder for the Taliban."

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The Pentagon will swap out as many as 14,000 "clerical" and other non-combat troops for "trigger pullers" in Afghanistan — a way for commanders to boost the fighting force without altering the overall troop presence, according to a >report in the Los Angeles Times.

The report, which cites anonymous defense officials in Washington, comes on the heels of U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal handing over his report on the war to his superiors at the Pentagon and in NATO. His analysis does not make specific recommendations on troop numbers, but it is widely expected that he'll ask for an increase later this year.

Officials told the Times that rotating out thousands of non-combat troops and replacing them with their frontline-ready comrades makes sense given the intensity of the fight against Taliban insurgents.

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