WORLD BRIEFING

Number of centrifuges increases

Iran has increased the number of operating centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant to 4,000, a top official said, pushing ahead with the nuclear program despite threats of new U.N. sanctions.

The number was up from the 3,000 centrifuges that Iran announced in November that it was operating at its plant in the central city of Natanz. Still, it is well below the 6,000 it said last year that it would operate by this summer, suggesting the program may be behind schedule.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Sheik Attar, who visited Natanz last week, said Iran was preparing to install even more centrifuges. He did not offer a time frame.

The U.N. has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze its enrichment program, which can be used to produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed for a nuclear warhead.

PAKISTAN

Candidate moves to secured house

Pakistan's presidential front-runner has moved into a tightly guarded government compound over security fears, officials said as a militant campaign against the government led to more violence in the country's volatile northwest.

Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani told reporters that Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was staying at a hilltop mansion in Islamabad's government quarters. Zardari is widely expected to win a Sept. 6 presidential election by lawmakers.

His party has sought to assure the U.S. since Pervez Musharraf's ouster as president that it is committed to battling terrorists.

The country has been hit by a string of suicide bombings this month, including one last week that left 67 dead, many of them civilians.

Army spokesman Maj. Nasir Ali said today that at least 30 Taliban fighters were killed Friday when the military, backed by fighter jets, destroyed some of the militant hide-outs in the Swat Valley, a once-popular tourist destination.

THAILAND

Police use tear gas on protesters

Thai police fired tear gas at thousands of right-wing protesters besieging their headquarters, and demonstrators outside the capital disrupted air and rail service in a growing campaign to unseat the prime minister.

Saying that Western-style democracy has allowed corruption to flourish, the protesters have said they hope to repeat their success of two years ago, when they helped topple then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.