World Powers

WASHINGTON - Six world powers and Iran agreed to hold talks on Tehran's disputed nuclear program this month in Kazakhstan in the latest attempt to avoid a military confrontation over the issue. After three months of negotiations, Iran's national security council reached agreement with the office of the European Union's foreign policy chief and point person for the six world powers, Catherine Ashton, for a meeting Feb. 26. The six nations - Russia, China, France, Germany, Britain and the United States - have been urging Iran to accept limits on a nuclear program that many countries fear is aimed at developing a weapon.

WASHINGTON - Iran has told the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency that it plans to add 3,000 faster centrifuges to its main uranium enrichment facility, a step that could shorten the time needed if Tehran decides to build a nuclear bomb. Officials with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday that Iranian authorities had informed them in a letter that Tehran would add IR-2m centrifuges, which spin three to five times faster than the current IR-1 model, to the enrichment hall at the Natanz nuclear complex.

French troops have joined the Malian military in its fight to stop Islamist fighters from extending their reach into central Mali, President Francois Hollande said in a statement Friday. Mali pleaded for French help Thursday after the strategic city of Konna fell to Islamist extremists, dealing a serious blow to the military and threatening a nearby airport. Reports quickly emerged Friday that French muscle was aiding in the push to eject rebels from Konna. Hours after announcing that France “will be ready to stop the terrorists' advance, if it continues," Hollande confirmed to reporters that French troops were supporting Malian units and would do so "as long as is necessary," Agence France-Presse reported . A U.N. council has already approved plans to send thousands of West African troops to Mali, but officials cautioned last month that no action was likely before September.

DEL RAY BEACH, Fla. - On the eve of the final presidential debate - on foreign policy -  Mitt Romney declined Sunday to say whether he would favor one-on-one negotiations with Iran to resolve the deadlock over that country's nuclear program. The New York Times reported Sunday that U.S. officials have said Iran is willing to restart one-on-one talks after the Nov. 6 presidential election, and administration officials have told the Los Angeles Times that Iran may be prepared to reengage in those discussions.

WASHINGTON - Iran is preparing for a new round of negotiations about its disputed nuclear program after the U.S. presidential election determines whether Tehran will face a Republican administration that may have less patience than President Obama's for long-running efforts to reach a deal, according to diplomats close to the discussions. Iran has balked at high-level talks since it met with six world powers in June in Moscow. But recently it has signaled that it is ready to resume discussions in November in what could finally determine whether the diplomatic track can resolve a long standoff over the country's nuclear ambitions.

WASHINGTON - President Obama's vow to limit U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war is being criticized from a usually sympathetic quarter: the Democratic foreign policy establishment. Senior Democratic foreign policy figures, along with diplomats who have worked for Democratic administrations, are saying the administration needs to do more to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and preserve U.S. influence in a key Mideast state. The views of these figures, including former Clinton administration Defense Secretary William Perry and former Obama administration officials Ann-Marie Slaughter and Dennis Ross, add to pressure on the White House from regional allies and Republican rivals as the Syrian conflict has intensified.

BEIRUT - The United States and other world powers meeting Saturday in Geneva threw their weight behind a United Nations-brokered plan for a transitional government for Syria, but the move appeared to raise more questions than it answered. Chief among them: What about Syrian President Bashar Assad? Russia has rejected the U.S. insistence that Assad go, and the new transitional plan doesn't appear to have resolved their fundamental disagreement. Beyond the new proposal, the "action group" of nations vowed to launch a fresh diplomatic effort aimed at reviving a U.N.-brokered peace deal that is now in tatters.

KOLKATA  - Mamata Banerjee stares at you from buildings, overpasses, telephone poles and rail lines, wearing reading glasses and evoking Mother Teresa in one billboard, a square-jawed warrior girding for political battle in another. Just over a year into her job, the 5-foot-tall, larger-than-life chief minister ofIndia'seastern West Bengal state is making waves, if not always the right kind. Banerjee has been described as India'smost powerful - and mercurial - elected official, wielding inordinate clout over the nation's weak central government.

MOSCOW - Iran on Monday offered up a blistering critique of a proposal by six world powers to rein in its nuclear program, marking the latest setback in efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict. In Iran's first detailed analysis of the proposal, the nation's chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, ticked off a list of objections in a five-hour negotiating session at a Moscow hotel and expounded at length about Tehran's grievances with the West, dating back to at least 1968.

Iran on Monday offered up a blistering critique of a proposal by six world powers to rein in Tehran's nuclear program, marking another setback in efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the dispute. In its first detailed analysis of the proposal, Iranian chief negotiator Saeed Jalili enumerated a lengthy list of objections in a five-hour negotiating session at a Moscow hotel and expounded at length about Iran's grievances with the West dating back to 1968. The meeting, the third this year between Iran and the six powers, “was intense, it was tough,” said Michael Mann, a spokesman for the European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.