Iran rejects Rumsfeld's claims:
"The repetition of such baseless claims (concerning al-Qaida) cannot portray them as valid and credible," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
U.S. officials have said at least three al-Qaida leaders are in Iran: Saif al-Adil, bin Laden's security and intelligence chief; Saad bin Laden, Osama's son; and Abu Hafs the Mauritanian, a religious scholar.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in February that his government has detained and deported more than 500 infiltrators suspected of al-Qaida links and would arrest Saad bin Laden if he's found in the country.

Donald Rumsfeld accuses Iran:
"There are still countries harboring terrorists. I mean, we know there are senior al-Qaeda in Iran," Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld, who has previously accused Iran of giving refuge to al-Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan, provided no details on which of the group's leaders are believed to be in Iran.
He noted, however, Iran's alleged involvement in the 1996 terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 US military personnel.

The U.S. is warning the IAEA about Iran:
The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency would be making a big mistake if it failed to find Iran in serious violation of a key international arms control treaty, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.
"We think there are major violations and that's what the evidence shows, and the overall pattern of Iran's behavior is not consistent with anything other than a nuclear weapons program," said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Washington has not been told that ElBaradei will report only minor treaty violations by Iran. But if he does, "it would be a big mistake ... If the director general doesn't follow the evidence it's going to be potentially a major problem," the U.S. official said, without elaborating.

The U.S. says Iraqi looters might not be shot:
The officials denied, however, a published report that the American military had new orders to shoot looters on sight.
"We're not going to go out and shoot children that are picking up a piece of wood out of a factory and carrying it away or a bag of cement," Maj. Gen. Buford Blount III, commander of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, told reporters in Baghdad.
"Our soldiers have the right to defend themselves and have. And if a looter is carrying a weapon and the soldier feels threatened, of course he is going to engage," Blount said. "We are aggressively targeting looters."
Rumsfeld said two-thirds to three-quarters of Baghdad is stable, but acknowledged that many criminals take to the streets at night. He said most of the country's jails were emptied during the war.

Cholera has arrived in southern Iraq:
The World Health Organization on Wednesday confirmed a cholera outbreak in southern Iraq, saying its lab results had showed the virus responsible for the disease was present in samples taken from Basra. WHO officials say the cases hint at a much wider epidemic in the region. Basra has had a history of cholera annually but health officials say this year's outbreak was triggered early because of the war.

There are predictions of more terrorist attacks:
US officials have warned that al-Qaeda may be planning a series of attacks on soft targets after at least 34 people, including one Australian and seven Americans, died in Monday night's synchronised car bomb attacks on three residential compounds in Riyadh.
Australian foreign affairs officials warned that further attacks in Saudi Arabia were possible, and also advised against non-essential travel to Indonesia.
The exact nature or source of the latest intelligence was not revealed but the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, said that he was "very concerned about Jemaah Islamiah" - the group allegedly behind the Bali bombings which killed 200 people including 88 Australians.

South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun tries to reassure U.S. investors:
In a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce, Roh reiterated the message he delivered to financiers in New York the day before: South Korea remains a safe place to invest despite seven months of nuclear saber-rattling by North Korea.
"As for North Korea's nuclear issue, which left investors wary, I will try to resolve it peacefully without fail," Roh said.
Roh also promised the business leaders he would work to remove "confrontation and friction between labor and management" that he acknowledged was a "considerable drawback" to doing business in the country of 48 million people.
"Change is in the works, and there will be much more," he said. "Labor disputes at foreign-invested firms have been reduced virtually to a minimum." The 56-year-old former human rights lawyer has worked hard since taking power in February to dispel U.S. perceptions that he is soft on North Korea and unfriendly to business because of his long association with labor unions.

North Korea says a no-nuclear bombs agreement with the South is broken:
The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the 1992 North-South pact had been nullified.
"The Bush administration has systematically and completely torpedoed the process of denuclearization on the Korean peninsula. The inter-Korean declaration on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was thus reduced to a dead document."
The agreement was the last legal restraint on North Korean nuclear ambitions after the Stalinist regime pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and abandoned a 1994 arms control accord with the United States.

Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has rejected ties to the U.S.:
"Some are prescribing surrender to the US adventurers, but surrender to the enemy is no remedy," Khamenei told thousands of students at Tehran's Shahid Beheshti University on Monday.
"To go to the enemy is not the solution, since that would do nothing but to reinforce his morale, and make him more and more adventurous," the powerful cleric said.
His tough words came after US officials admitted to ongoing contacts between the two nations and, a week after, 153 MPs in the 290-seat Iranian parliament signed an open letter calling for normal relations between Iran and the outside world, including the United States.

Britain has warned of the danger of more attacks in Saudi Arabia:
Britain warned on Tuesday of a "high threat" of further attacks against Western interests in Saudi Arabia -- possibly involving chemical or biological weapons -- after three suicide bombings overnight.
The Foreign Office issued a warning advising all Britons against non-essential travel to the region after the bombings on compounds housing foreigners killed or injured dozens.
"There remains a high threat of further large or small scale attacks against Western interests in Saudi Arabia," the Foreign Office said. "Terrorist attacks could involve the use of chemical and biological materials."

The New York Times says Kim Jong II changed behavior in response to the Iraq war:
American intelligence officials have concluded that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, went into seclusion during the final buildup to the war in Iraq because he feared that he too might be the target of attack. That judgment has led the Pentagon to consider new ways to hold him and his inner circle at risk as a way of bolstering deterrence on the peninsula, officials say.
A senior Defense Department official said that lessons from the attacks against Saddam Hussein of Iraq, including short-notice air strikes on suspected hideouts in the opening and closing days of the war, are shaping discussions of how best to re-arrange the American military presence in South Korea and nearby in the Pacific.
Mr. Kim vanished after he welcomed a Russian delegation on Feb. 12, and reappeared only on April 3, choosing a ceremony at a military surgeons' school for his highly symbolic return to public view, according to American intelligence officials.
Since re-emerging, Mr. Kim has mostly visited military units, including a naval weapons factory late last week, according to American intelligence officials.