US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the issue and agreed that both sides would continue talks 'with a view toward early results,' a joint statement said.

The new push came from Presidents George W Bush and Vladimir Putin, who held two days of talks ending Monday at the Bush family estate in Maine.

Both sides want to reduce strategic nuclear arsenals 'to the lowest possible level consistent with their national security requirements and alliance commitments,' the statement said.

The START pact, negotiated by the US and the Soviet Union but formally in force since 1994, limits the United States and Russia to 6,000 deployed nuclear warheads. It also scrapped Soviet-era nuclear arsenals in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine.

Joseph cited confidence-building and 'transparency,' such as data exchanges and site visits, as issues for the post-START talks.

Meanwhile, Moscow views the effort as 'a continuing process of nuclear reduction,' Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Kislyak told a joint news conference in Washington.

Separately, Bush and Putin agreed to boost US-Russian cooperation in promoting civilian nuclear power, especially in poorer countries, while avoiding the spread of nuclear materials and weapons.

One part of the effort is for both countries to provide nuclear fuel services, including international nuclear fuel cycle centres that enrich uranium under safeguards of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the two leaders said in a joint statement.

'This expansion of nuclear energy should be conducted in a way that strengthens the nuclear nonproliferation regime,' they said.

Three men have admitted using the internet to urge Muslims to wage holy war on non-believers, police said, in what is believed to the first prosecution of its kind in Britain.

Tariq Al-Daour, Younes Tsouli and Waseem Mughal had close links with Al-Qaeda in Iraq and thought there was a 'global conspiracy' to wipe out Islam, London's Woolwich Crown Court was told.

UAE-born Al-Daour, 21, admitted a charge of 'inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the UK which would, if committed in England and Wales, constitute murder'.

Moroccan-born Tsouli, 23, and British-born Mughal, 24, admitted the same charge on Monday.

The guilty pleas came two months into their trial.

Al-Daour and Tsouli, who lived in west London, and Mughal, from Kent, in southeast England, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud banks, credit card and charge card companies.

The trial was told the computer experts spent at least 12 months trying to encourage people to follow the extreme ideology of Osama bin Laden using email and radical websites.

Films of hostages and beheadings were found among their possessions, including footage of British contractor Ken Bigley, who was killed in Iraq in 2004; and US journalist Daniel Pearl, killed in Pakistan in 2002.

CDs containing instructions for making explosives and poisons were also found, with other documents giving advice on how to use a rocket-propelled grenade and how to make booby traps and a suicide vest.

Police also discovered online conversations in which Al-Dour talked of sponsoring terrorist attacks, becoming 'the new Osama' and justifying suicide bombings.

A Manhattan federal judge has rejected Parmalat SpA's (PLT.MI: Quote, Profile , Research) request to dismiss an investor class-action lawsuit stemming from the company's December 2003 collapse in an accounting scandal.

The ruling is a defeat for the Italian dairy company and Chief Executive Enrico Bondi. Both have been trying to distance themselves from prior management, and are seeking billions of dollars of damages from the company's former bankers.

Parmalat had filed Europe's largest bankruptcy under about 14 billion euros ($19.07 billion) of debt, after uncovering a 4 billion euro ($5.45 billion) hole in its accounts.

In a June 28 ruling, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan concluded that the reorganized Parmalat "expressly agreed" when it emerged from insolvency proceedings in 2005 to assume the old Parmalat's liabilities for fraud alleged by the investors.

"New Parmalat asserts that it did not assume the pre-insolvency acts," Kaplan wrote in a 30-page opinion. "But the issue is not the assumption of acts. It is the assumption of liability for those acts."

Kaplan also rejected Bondi's contention that the investors waited too long after learning of the alleged fraud to file claims, saying procedural developments in the case pushed back the filing deadline.

Stuart Grant, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, in a statement said Kaplan's decision paves the way for a "substantial recovery" against Parmalat. 

The commutation, which drastically reduced Libby's punishment, is just short of a presidential pardon, which would have exonerated Libby and wiped the conviction from his record.

The key adviser to Cheney and an architect of the Iraq war, Libby was convicted March 6 in federal court. A jury found him guilty of lying to prosecutors who were trying to determine if top Bush administration officials leaked the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson -- purported retaliation for her husband's contention that the Bush administration twisted intelligence facts to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement announcing his decision. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive."

While the president has the right to pardon convicted criminals and commute prison sentences, such actions are rare, and normally are taken after a thorough investigation by the Department of Justice. Bush, however, said in his statement that he made the decision personally.

The president noted that Libby's supporters believe the punishment does not fit the crime, while his critics point to the fact that he was convicted of perjury and obstructing justice in an open court. While both sides "have made important points, I have made my own evaluation," Bush said.

Democratic Party leaders, including several of the party's presidential candidates, were outraged, saying the commutation shows disrespect for the judicial system and smacks of a different legal standard for Bush's top aides.

In a statement issued last night, Senate majority leader Harry Reid called Bush's decision "disgraceful," adding that Libby's jury trial and conviction "was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq War. Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone."

But House Republican whip Roy Blunt applauded the decision, saying, "President Bush did the right thing today in commuting the prison term for Scooter Libby. The prison sentence was overly harsh and the punishment did not fit the crime. The sentence was based on charges that had nothing to do with the leak of the identity of a CIA operative."

Libby's lawyer, William Jeffress , said he was pleased by the president's decision. "The prison sentence was imminent, but obviously the conviction itself is a heavy blow to Scooter," he told the Associated Press.

The case against Libby, authorities say, stemmed from a White House decision to play hardball with critics who challenged their reasoning for the war. Cheney was particularly incensed at a New York Times opinion article by Joseph Wilson, Plame Wilson's husband, a retired ambassador who accused the administration of exaggerating the security threat in Iraq.

As the White House was preparing its case for war, the CIA asked Wilson, a retired ambassador who had served in Africa, in 2002 to check out reports that Niger had sent materials for a nuclear weapon to Iraq. Upon returning, Wilson told the CIA he found no evidence of such a transfer.

Nonetheless, Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union speech that the British government "has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

In July 2003, Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times stating that the intelligence the president cited in his speech had been "twisted" to exaggerate the Iraqi threat and convince Congress and the nation that war was necessary. According to evidence introduced during the trial, Cheney clipped the article and jotted a note on it: "did his wife send him on a junket?"

Shortly afterward, Plame Wilson's name was leaked as a CIA operative, appearing first in a column written by Robert Novak. A federal investigation was launched, and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald interviewed many administration insiders, including Libby, as well as several influential Washington journalists. The investigation focused on whether Plame Wilson's name was leaked as retaliation for her husband's article and to undercut his credibility.

Reached by telephone yesterday, Wilson said he believes Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence raises further suspicion about what role the president, vice president, and other top aides may have had in revealing his wife's identity.

Fitzgerald maintained after Libby's verdict that his false testimony and obstruction may have prevented a case from being brought for the original act of leaking the identity of an undercover intelligence operative.

Bush "has effectively guaranteed that there is no incentive for Mr. Libby to tell the truth about what really happened," Wilson said, adding that his wife "is just as outraged as I am."

Bush's action came at a time when many Democrats and some Republicans have called for a continued investigation into how the president went to war. Some Democrats had hoped the investigation that led to Libby's conviction would unearth fresh information about how the administration manipulated journalists and the Congress with misleading information about the allegation that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Analysts said Bush's decision demonstrated the continuing influence of Cheney, who issued a statement after the sentencing that he was "deeply saddened" by the 30-month term. "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man," Cheney and his wife, Lynne, said at the time.

While there has been considerable speculation that Bush would commute Libby's sentence or pardon him, the swiftness of the decision surprised many political observers because it came before Libby exhausted his legal appeals.

"I'm surprised it was this quick. There were other appeals that could have been taken," said University of Richmond School of Law professor Carl Tobias. Tobias noted that the three-judge panel is composed of two Republican appointees and one Democratic appointee, which indicates Libby might have had a tough time winning an appeal. "They were unanimous and these were not what anybody would consider left-wing judges," Tobias said.

During the sentencing hearing, Fitzgerald urged US District Judge Reggie Walton "to make clear and loud that truth matters and one's station in life does not." Walton, in announcing the sentence, said "it is important we expect and demand a lot from people who put themselves in those positions. Mr. Libby failed to meet the bar."

Richard Meyer, previously chair of the patent practice at McGuireWoods LLP, will join Townsend from McGuireWoods' Tysons Corner office, serving as head of East Coast litigation. Also joining Townsend from McGuireWoods is partner Jonathan Link, special counsel Andrew Pratt and associate Andrea Tiglio.

"For an IP firm, Washington, DC is a logical choice by virtue of its proximity to the Patent and Trademark Office, the International Trade Commission and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit - all venues where we have been extremely active for years," said Townsend Chairman James Gilliland in a statement.

Townsend also recently opened practices in Seattle and San Diego. In addition to its home office in San Francisco, it also has practices in Palo Alto and Walnut Creek, Calif., Denver and Tokyo.

http://www.townsend.com

A Los Angeles jury in 2001 had rejected Davis' claims, but the trial judge, Robert C. Hubbell, threw out the verdict and ordered a new trial after several jurors accused two members of the panel of misconduct. An appellate court in 2005 restored the jury verdict, saying conflicting accounts of what happened in the jury room did not merit a new trial. Restricting its review to a narrow legal issue - whether the appellate court was correct in reviewing the competing juror accounts in the absence of a rationale being provided by Hubbell for his own ruling - the Supreme Court affirmed the appellate decision.

"We are pleased this lengthy litigation is finally over," said NFL executive vice president Joe Browne.

Jeff Birren, the Raiders' general counsel, said, "The Supreme Court ruled that because the judge failed to insert a couple of extra words of explanation, the Raiders should be denied a new trial. The Supreme Court's ruling is incomprehensible."

Davis had claimed more than $1 billion worth of damages from the NFL, but jurors didn't believe his account that the league forced his decision to move back to Oakland by imposing onerous terms before it would help build a new Hollywood Park stadium. The jury sided with the NFL, which argued Davis took the deal in Oakland because he thought it would turn out best for the team.

After the verdict was reached, Davis personally interviewed jurors and found some who were willing to sign statements saying a member of the panel was prejudiced against the Raiders. That juror, Joseph Abiog, maintained he had no bias, saying he only had joked that "I hate the Raiders" because he once lost a bet on the team in Las Vegas.

The Oakland contract has been disastrous both for the Raiders and taxpayers in the city and in Alameda County, as Raiders fans refused to buy all the pricey personal seat licenses and club seats that the deal's proponents had projected. The Raiders have fallen to among the lowest revenue-producing teams in the league, while the city and county have paid $236 million to cover the deal costs to date, a number that will increase until bonds used to rebuild McAfee Coliseum are retired in 2025.