The news from International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano, who returned from Tehran on Tuesday, comes just a day before Iran and six world powers meet in Baghdad for negotiations and could present a significant turning point in the heated dispute over Iran's nuclear intentions. The six nations hope the talks will result in an agreement by the Islamic Republic to stop enriching uranium to a higher level that could be turned quickly into the fissile core of nuclear arms.

Iran denies it seeks nuclear arms and says its reactors are only for power and medical applications.

By compromising on the IAEA probe, Iranian negotiators in Baghdad could argue that the onus was now on the other side to show some flexibility and temper its demands. Although Amano's trip and the talks in Baghdad are formally separate, Iran hopes progress with the IAEA can boost its chances Wednesday in pressing the U.S. and Europe to roll back sanctions that have hit Iran's critical oil exports and blacklisted the country from international banking networks.

It was unclear, though, how far the results achieved by Amano would serve that purpose, with him returning without the two sides signing the deal, despite his upbeat comments.

After talks in Tehran between Amano and chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, "the decision was made... to reach agreement" on the mechanics of giving the IAEA access to sites, scientists and documents it seeks to restart its probe," Amano told reporters at Vienna airport after his one-day trip to Tehran.

Amano said differences existed on "some details," without elaborating but added that Jalili had assured him that these "will not be an obstacle to reach agreement." He spoke of "an almost clean text" that will be signed soon, although he could not say when.

Western diplomats are skeptical of Iran's willingness to open past and present activities to full perusal, believing it would only reveal what they suspect and Tehran denies — that the Islamic Republic has researched and developed components of a nuclear weapons program. They say that Tehran's readiness to honor any agreement it has signed is the true test of its willingness to cooperate

The United States is among those skeptics. In a statement released soon after Amano's announcement, Robert A. Wood, America's chief delegate to the nuclear agency, said Washington appreciated Amano's efforts but remained "concerned by the urgent obligation for Iran to take concrete steps to cooperate fully with the verification efforts of the IAEA, based on IAEA verification practices."

" We urge Iran to take this opportunity to resolve all outstanding concerns about the nature of its nuclear program," said the statement. "Full and transparent cooperation with the IAEA is the first logical step."

For the six powers — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — a main concern is Iran's production of uranium enriched to 20 percent, which is far higher than needed for regular energy-producing reactors but used for one Iran says it needs for medical research. The U.S. and its allies fear the higher-enriched uranium could be quickly boosted to warhead-grade material.

U.S. officials have said Washington will not backpedal from its stance that Iran must fully halt uranium enrichment. But speculation is increasing that the priorities have shifted to block the 20 percent enrichment and perhaps allow Iran to maintain lower-level nuclear fuel production — at least for now.

Iranian officials could package such a scenario as a victory for their domestic audience. In Israel, it would likely be greeted with dismay and widen rifts between President Barack Obama's U.S. administration and Israeli officials who keep open the threat of military action against Iran's nuclear sites.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned against concessions, saying world powers should make "clear and unequivocal demands" that Iran stop all of its nuclear enrichment activity.

"Iran wants to destroy Israel and it is developing nuclear weapons to fulfill that goal," Netanyahu said at a conference in Jerusalem. "Against this malicious intention, leading world powers need to display determination and not weakness. They should not make any concessions to Iran."

Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator who met with Amano and will also be the lead envoy at the Baghdad talks, said his country hopes for a new beginning when the talks start on Wednesday.

"We hope that the talks in Baghdad will be a kind of dialogue that will give shape to ... cooperation," Jalili said after arriving in Baghdad late Monday.

As part of any agreement, Amano and his agency are focused on getting Iran to let agency experts to probe various high-profile Iranian sites, including the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran, where the agency believes Iran in 2003 ran explosive tests needed to set off a nuclear charge. The suspected blasts took place inside a pressure chamber.

Iran has never said whether the chamber existed, but describes Parchin as a conventional military site. Iran, however, has blocked IAEA requests for access to sites, scientists and documents needed for its investigation for more than four years.

Amano's talks included Jalili as well as Iran's foreign minister and other officials including the head of Iran's nuclear agency, Fereidoun Abbasi.

Iranian lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahtpisheh told The Associated Press on Monday that Tehran will likely accept more inspections of Parchin "if it feels there is good will within the (IAEA)."

But Falahtpisheh warned that this new openness will likely come with expectations that the West would in return ease international sanctions on Iran.

"In opening up to more inspections, Iran aims at lowering the crisis over its nuclear case," he said. "But if the sanctions continue, Iran would stop this."

A political analyst in Tehran, Hamid Reza Shokouhi, said Iran is carefully watching to see if the West shows more "flexibility and pays attention to Iranian demands" during Amano's trip.

"Then Iran will show flexibility, too," Shokouhi said.

But some Iranian media was critical of Amano and the IAEA, possibly reflecting internal divisions on how far to go compromise on nuclear issues.

In a sign of ebbing market worries, oil prices have steadily fallen since Iran and world powers resumed talks in April in Istanbul. Fears of supply disruptions because of military conflict or Iranian shipping blockades helped drive prices above $106 a barrel earlier this year. Oil rose to slightly above $92 per barrel Monday in New York.

Military officials said Monday's bombing, which took place near Sanaa's presidential palace, is one of the deadliest attacks in the city in years.

They say the attacker was a soldier taking part in the drill, lining up with fellow troops at a main square in the capital.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The bombing appeared to be a failed assassination attempt against the Minister of Defense, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, who arrived at the city square for the parade just minutes before the blast ripped through the area.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but it came as the country's new political leadership has been stepping up the fight against al-Qaida militants holding large swaths of land in the nation's south.

While fighting al-Qaida militants, Yemen's new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has been embroiled in a power struggle with loyalists of ousted leader Ali Abdullah Saleh. He has sacked several of them along with family members from top positions in the armed forces, including the air force.

"This is a real massacre," said Ahmed Sobhi, one of the soldiers who witnessed the explosion. "There are piles of torn body parts, limbs, and heads. This is unbelievable. I am still shaking. The place turned into hell. I thought this only happens in movies."

The bomber detonated his explosives minutes before the arrival of the defense minister and the chief of staff, who were expected to greet the troops, the officials said. The drill was a rehearsal for a parade for the celebration of Yemen's National Day on Tuesday.

Soldiers hand-picked by their commanders from different branches of the military have been practicing together for the parade for a week, Sobhi said, citing that as evidence that the attacker was a soldier and not an infiltrator.

The site of the attack has been sealed off by Republican Guard forces for the past 24 hours in preparation for the National Day celebrations. No cars or pedestrians were allowed to enter. The Republican Guard is led by Saleh's son and one-time heir apparent, Ahmed.

Khaled Ali, another soldier, told The Associated Press over the phone from the site of the attack that the explosion was followed by heavy gunfire.

"In the mayhem, we were all running in all directions. I saw the guards of the minister surrounding him and forming a human cordon. They were firing in the air," he said.

"There will be no rush for the exits," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Sunday. "Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remain unchanged."

Public opinion in Europe and the United States is solidly against the war, with a majority of Americans now saying it is unwinnable or not worth continuing.

Newly elected French President Francois Hollande has said he will withdraw all French combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end - a full two years before the timeline agreed to by nations in the U.S.-led NATO coalition.

Scotland released al-Megrahi on Aug. 20, 2009, on compassionate grounds to let him return home to die after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. At the time, doctors predicted he had only three months to live.

Anger over the release was further stoked by the hero's welcome he received on his arrival in Libya - and by subsequent allegations that London had sought his release to preserve business interests in the oil-rich North African nation, strongly denied by the British and Scottish governments.

Al-Megrahi insisted he was innocent, but he kept a strict silence after his release, living in the family villa surrounded by high walls in a posh Tripoli neighborhood, mostly bedridden or taking a few steps with a cane. Libyan authorities sealed him off from public access. When the one-year anniversary of his release passed, some who visited him said al-Megrahi bitterly mused that the world was rooting for him to die.

His son, Khaled al-Megrahi, confirmed that he died in Tripoli in a telephone interview but hung up before giving more details.

Saad Nasser al-Megrahi, a relative and a member of the ruling National Transitional Council, said al-Megrahi's health had seriously deteriorated in recent days and he died of cancer-related complications.

Al-Megrahi passed away at his Tripoli home on Sunday morning, according to another NTC member, Moussa al-Kouni.

To the end, al-Megrahi insisted he had nothing to do with the bombing, which killed 270 people, most of them Americans.

"I am an innocent man," al-Megrahi said in his last interview, published in several British papers in December. "I am about to die and I ask now to be left in peace with my family."

In New York City, the father of one of the Lockerbie victims said al-Megrahi's death was "to a degree a relief" and insisted that his 2009 release from jail was a political deal.

"If he had been that bad three years ago, he wouldn't have lived this long. It was a political deal," said Glenn Johnson of Greensburg, Pa, whose 21-year-old daughter Beth Ann Johnson was killed in the bombing.

Al-Megrahi's death, which came seven months after ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi was killed, leaves many unanswered questions that have surrounded the Lockerbie case, despite the conviction.

The U.S., Britain, and prosecutors in his trial contended that he did not act alone and carried out the bombing at the behest of Libyan intelligence. After Gadhafi's fall, Britain asked Libya's new rulers to help fully investigate but they put off any probe.

They also rejected Western pressure to jail or return al-Megrahi.

"He is between life and death, so what difference would prison make?" his brother, Abdel-Nasser al-Megrahi, said at the time.

Little was known about al-Megrahi. At his trial, he was described as the "airport security" chief for Libyan intelligence, and witnesses reported him negotiating deals to buy equipment for Libya's secret service and military.

But he became a central figure in both Libya's falling out with the West and then its re-emergence from the cold.

To Libyans, he was a folk hero, an innocent scapegoat used by the West to turn their country into a pariah. The regime presented his handover to Scotland in 1999 as a necessary sacrifice to restore Libya's relations with the world.

In the months ahead of his release, Tripoli put enormous pressure on Britain, warning that if the ailing al-Megrahi died in a Scottish prison, all British commercial activity in Libya would be cut off and a wave of demonstrations would erupt outside British embassies, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic memos. The Libyans even implied "that the welfare of U.K. diplomats and citizens in Libya would be at risk," the memos say.

But in the eyes of many Americans and Europeans, he was the foot-soldier carrying out orders from Gadhafi's regime. Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister at the time of the conviction, said the verdict "confirms our long-standing suspicion that Libya instigated the Lockerbie bombing."

The bombing that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, over Lockerbie, Scotland was one of the deadliest terror attacks in modern history. The flight was heading to New York from London's Heathrow airport and many of the victims were American college students flying home to for Christmas.

Gadhafi handed over al-Megrahi and a second suspect to Scottish authorities after years of punishing U.N. sanctions. Four years later, in 2003, Gadhafi acknowledged responsibility - though not guilt - for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation of about $2.7 billion to the Lockerbie victims' families. He also pledged to dismantle all weapons of mass destruction and joined the U.S.-led war on terror.

The regime maintained it handed al-Megrahi over and paid compensation only to win the lifting of sanctions. The steps won Gadhafi quick rewards, with Western powers resuming diplomatic contacts and signing lucrative business deals.

In 2001, a Scottish court - set up in the neutral ground of a military base in the Netherlands - convicted al-Megrahi of planting the bomb but acquitted his co-defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, a Libyan Arab Airlines official, of all charges. El-Megrahi ended up serving eight years of a life sentence.

The prosecution's case was built around a tiny fragment of circuit board discovered among the airline wreckage that investigators determined was part of the timer of the bomb, hidden in a suitcase. Investigators said the suitcase was loaded onto a flight from Malta, booked through to Pan Am 103 via Frankfurt.

An executive from a Swiss company testified that he had sold timers of the same make to Libya. Investigators found that al-Megrahi traveled to Malta on a false passport a day before the suitcase was checked in and left the following day.

Key to convicting al-Megrahi was the testimony of a Malta shopkeeper who identified him as having bought a man's shirt in his store. Scraps of the garment were found wrapped around the timing device.

However, a Scottish judicial body that carried out a major review of the evidence cast doubt on the shopowner's ID of al-Megrahi and said there was evidence the shirt was purchased on a day when al-Megrahi was not in Malta.

Al-Megrahi's lawyers also claimed that British and U.S. authorities tampered with evidence, disregarded witness statements and steered investigators away from suggestions the bombing was an Iranian-financed plot carried out by Palestinians to avenge the shooting down of a civilian Iranian airliner by a U.S. warship - in which some 290 people were killed - several months before the Lockerbie bombing. The judicial body, however, discounted theories of intentional misdirection.

Al-Megrahi had appealed his conviction, but had to drop the appeal to be eligible for compassionate release.

"I say in the clearest possible terms, which I hope every person in every land will hear - all of this I have had to endure for something that I did not do," al-Megrahi said in a statement after his release.

"I had most to gain and nothing to lose about the whole truth coming out - until my diagnosis of cancer," he said. "To those victims' relatives who can bear to hear me say this, they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered."

Some of the victims' families in Britain are also not convinced of al-Megrahi's guilt.

"By abandoning his appeal, we the families will be robbed of the opportunity to find justice," the Rev. John Mosey, whose daughter Helga died aboard Flight 103, said in 2009.

Chen Guangcheng had been hurriedly taken from a hospital hours earlier and put on a plane for the United States after Chinese authorities suddenly told him to pack and prepare to leave. He arrived Saturday evening at Newark Liberty International Airport and was whisked to New York City, where he will be staying.

Dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants and using crutches, his right leg in a cast, Chen was greeted with cheers when he arrived at the apartment in Manhattan's Greenwich Village where he will live with his family. The complex houses faculty and graduate students of New York University, where Chen is expected to attend law school.

"For the past seven years, I have never had a day's rest," he said through a translator. "So I have come here for reparation in body and spirit."

Chen urged the crowd to fight for injustice, and thanked the U.S. and Chinese governments, and also the embassies of Switzerland, Canada and France.

"After much turbulence, I have come out of Shandong," he said, referring to the Chinese province where he was under house arrest. He spoke briefly and didn't take questions from reporters.

The departure of Chen, his wife and two children to the United States marked the conclusion of nearly a month of uncertainty and years of mistreatment by local authorities for the self-taught activist.

After seven years of prison and house arrest, Chen made a daring escape from his rural village in April and was given sanctuary inside the U.S. Embassy, triggering a diplomatic standoff over his fate.

With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Beijing for annual high-level discussions, officials struck a deal that let Chen walk free, only to see him have second thoughts.

That forced new negotiations that led to an agreement to send him to the U.S. to study law, a goal of his, at New York University.

"Thousands of thoughts are surging to my mind," Chen said before he left China. His concerns, he said, included whether authorities would retaliate for his negotiated departure by punishing his relatives left behind. It also was unclear whether the government will allow him to return.

Chen's expected attendance at New York University comes from his association with Jerome Cohen, a law professor there who advised Chen while he was in the U.S. Embassy.

The two met when Chen came to the United States on a State Department program in 2003, and Cohen has been staunch advocate for him since.

"I'm very happy at the news that he's on his way and I look forward to welcoming him and his family tonight and to working with him on his course of study," Cohen said.

Before he left China, Chen asked his supporters and others in the activist community for their understanding of his desire to leave the front lines of the rights struggle in China.

"I am requesting a leave of absence, and I hope that they will understand," he said.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland praised the quiet negotiations that freed him.

"We also express our appreciation for the manner in which we were able to resolve this matter and to support Mr. Chen's desire to study in the U.S. and pursue his goals," Nuland said in a statement.

The White House also said it was pleased with the outcome of negotiations.

China's Foreign Ministry said it had no comment. The government's news agency, Xinhua, issued a brief report saying that Chen "has applied for study in the United States via normal channels in line with the law."

Chen's supporters welcomed his departure.

"This is great progress," said U.S.-based rights activist Bob Fu. "It's a victory for freedom fighters."

The 40-year-old Chen is emblematic of a new breed of activists that the Communist Party finds threatening. Often from rural and working-class families, these "rights defenders," as they are called, are unlike the students and intellectuals from the elite academies and major cities of previous democracy movements and thus could potentially appeal to ordinary Chinese.

Chen gained recognition for crusading for the disabled and for farmers' rights and fighting against forced abortions in his rural community. That angered local officials, who seemed to wage a personal vendetta against him, convicting him in 2006 on what his supporters say were fabricated charges and then holding him for the past 20 months in illegal house arrest.

Even with the backstage negotiations, Chen's departure came hastily. Chen spent the last 2 1/2 weeks in a hospital for the foot he broke escaping house arrest. Only on Wednesday did Chinese authorities help him complete the paperwork needed for his passport.

Chen said by telephone Saturday that he was informed at the hospital just before noon to pack his bags to leave. Officials did not give him and his family passports or inform them of their flight details until after they got to the airport.

Seeming ambivalent, Chen said that he was "not happy" about leaving and that he had a lot on his mind, including worries about retaliation against his extended family back home. His nephew, Chen Kegui, is accused of attempted murder after he allegedly used a kitchen knife to attack officials who stormed his house after discovering Chen Guangcheng was missing.

"I hope that the government will fulfill the promises it made to me, all of its promises," Chen said. Such promises included launching an investigation into abuses against him and his family in Shandong province, he said before the phone call was cut off.

Much as Chen has said he wants return to China, it remains uncertain whether the Chinese government would bar him, as they have done with many exiled activists.

"Chen's departure for the U.S. does not and should not in any way mark a 'mission accomplished' moment for the U.S. government," said Phelim Kine, a senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The harder, longer-term part is ensuring his right under international law to return to China when he sees fit."

Circling up around a table in a rustic cabin at the presidential retreat, the leaders underlined the need to keep bringing deficits down through austerity measures but also agreed that targeted spending on things like education and public works projects is needed to solve Europe's financial crisis.

"All of us are absolutely committed to making sure that growth and stability and fiscal consolidation are part of an overall package," Obama said.

Germany's Angela Merkel, for her part, said growth and deficit cutting reinforced each other "and that we have to work on both threads, and the participants have made that clear, and I think that is great progress."

The G-8 leaders' joint statement from the woods of Camp David reflected both hope and a recognition of the daunting economic challenges they face.

"The global recovery shows signs of promise, but significant headwinds persist," it said.

The summit brought together leaders of the United States, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, Britain, Russia, and Japan in an effort to figure out how to tame Europe's debt crisis while also increasing the demand for goods and spurring job growth.

Their statement conceded some points to Merkel's push for austerity, saying budget deficits needed to be closed. But it added that budget cutting should "take into account countries' evolving economic conditions and underpin confidence and economic recovery." That suggested a willingness to let indebted countries take more time to reduce their deficits in line with eurozone rules in order to lessen the deadening impact of cuts on the economy.

"The right measures are not the same for each of us," their statement said.

Their statement of support for Greece remaining in the euro underlined the potential and unpredictable damage to the global financial system that could come from a Greece departure. It follows a week of increasing speculation that Greece might not be able to stay the course.

Obama chose the secluded Camp David setting in part to give leaders a chance for an intimate and freewheeling discussion out of sight of most media and far from the raucous protests that have accompanied previous meetings of the G-8. Obama and his counterparts emerged briefly at midday for a group photo, strolling down from a cabin straddling a golf green with a sand bunker.

"Everybody give them one wave," Obama instructed the assembled leaders as they lined up for their official photo. "Let's look happy."

The setting gave the leaders a chance for informal walks and private exchanges on the cabin's patios on a warm spring day. Newly elected French President Francois Hollande said there had been "great frankness" in the discussions, and that leaders weren't digging in their heels on their respective positions.

First lady Michelle Obama, meanwhile, treated the leaders' spouses to lunch at the White House and a tour of its historic state rooms.

On the sidelines of the summit, Obama convened a lunch meeting of G-8 leaders and the leaders of Benin, Tanzania, Ghana and Ethiopia to discuss ways of improving food security in Africa. Obama said all of the G-8 leaders were committed to fulfilling the terms of a food security initiative developed in 2009 that led to $22 billion in government-backed pledges. "We're looking to go beyond what we agreed to three years ago," Obama said.

Obama's argument for additional stimulus measures alongside belt-tightening was primarily aimed at Germany, the strongest member of the union that uses the common Euro currency.

Merkel, speaking of the efforts to promote growth, said that "we have some investments for the future under consideration" in research and development, Internet networks and infrastructure. But she said "this doesn't mean stimulus in the usual sense." She added that "we are certainly open" to more use of the EU's development bank and infrastructure funds for Greece, but that Greece must keep to the strict terms of its bailout loans.

The G-8 session sets the stage for a far more consequential European summit in Brussels next week where the countries that share the euro as their currency hope to come together on specific steps to fight rising debt while spurring a recovery.

The Camp David gathering opened with a Friday evening discussion focused on global trouble spots Iran and Syria. Obama said the session also touched on North Korea's aggression and hopeful signs of democratic change in Myanmar.

"We are unified on our approach to Iran," and hopeful of progress ahead of a diplomatic meeting with Iran next week, Obama said Saturday.

Iran may have a peaceful nuclear energy program but misuse of that program for a nuclear weapon is unacceptable, Obama said. Ever-tighter economic sanctions cannot be loosened while the world encourages Iran to rein in its program, Obama said.

"All of us are firmly committed to continuing with the approach of sanctions and pressure in combination with diplomatic discussions," Obama said. "And our hope is that we can resolve this issue in a peaceful fashion that respects Iran's sovereignty and its rights in the international community, but also recognizes its responsibilities."

In a separate statement on world oil markets, the leaders said they stand ready to respond to oil supply disruptions from the sanctions on Iran. The leader said increasing disruptions "pose a substantial risk" to the global economy but that they stand ready to call upon the International Energy Agency to ensure that the oil market "is fully and timely supplied."

On Syria, Obama said the group supports a United Nations cease-fire plan that has yet to be honored in full. He said a statement to be issued at the close of the G-8 summit will reflect that support for the plan brokered by envoy Kofi Annan, but also say that the plan has not taken hold fast enough.

Most of the leaders are part of overlapping international coalitions formed to address the Iranian nuclear problem and the newer crisis in Syria, where an estimated 9,000 people have died in more than a year of violence that arose from the pro-democracy Arab uprisings.

Faced with implacable Russian opposition to significant new United Nations punishments on the Syrian regime, U.S. officials are trying to get consensus among other allies about ways to promote the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad's ouster.

"We all believe that a peaceful resolution and political transition in Syria is preferable," Obama said Saturday.

Later Saturday the leaders were returning to foreign affairs topics with discussion of Afghanistan and the Middle East.

For Obama, Europe's fate is critical to his own political survival. An economic recession that spreads to the U.S. could damage an already slow recovery and boost the argument by his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, that the United States economy needs new leadership.

There is a get-acquainted aspect to the session as well.

The Camp David gathering, the largest collection of foreign leaders ever at the presidential retreat, is the first G-8 meeting for Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. In what has been widely viewed as a snub, Russian President Vladimir Putin is skipping the G-8. He sent Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in his place.

Omar Hammami, also known as Abu Mansur al-Amriki, says in his online diary released Wednesday that his "bad temperament" runs in his family and that he showed anger to his teachers when he was in kindergarten.

He says he is releasing the first part of his autobiography now due to the "unpredictable nature" of jihad. He was feared dead last month after he issued a video in March saying his life was in danger because of his disagreements with other militant leaders.

The 28-year-old grew up in Daphne, Alabama. He joined al-Shabab in 2007.

Hammami is wanted by the FBI for his role in militant activities.

WASHINGTON (AP) - When leaders from eight of the world's biggest economies meet this weekend outside Washington, the focus will be on how to prevent Europe's debt crisis from spiraling out of control.

The turmoil in Greece is draining confidence in the 17 countries that use the euro. Borrowing costs are up for the most indebted governments. Depositors and investors are fleeing banks seen as weak. Unemployment is soaring as recession grips nearly half the eurozone countries. And global markets are on edge.

All that forms a tumultuous backdrop as representatives of the G8 countries - the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, Russia, Italy and Canada - head to Camp David.

Standing in the way of a breakthrough are disagreements over how to bolster Europe's economy and avoid a broader catastrophe.

In advance of the talks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel struck a conciliatory note this week. She said in a television interview this week that she was open to measures to help stimulate Greece's economy as long as the country honors its commitments to shrink its debts.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner applauded the softer tone emerging among European leaders.

"You are seeing them talk about a better balance between growth and austerity, meaning a somewhat more gradual, softer path toward restoring fiscal sustainability," Geithner said.

The shift shows that European leaders recognize that countries cannot increase their economic growth if they're forced to focus solely on cutting spending and reducing debts. Geithner said European countries would benefit from investment in public works projects, like roads and schools.

At this weekend's talks, non-European leaders will seek assurances that European leaders could contain the damage from a banking meltdown in Greece. They worry about a panic that could spill into Portugal, Spain and other indebted European countries - and to nations outside the continent whose banks are connected to Greek banks.

"If there was a bank run in Greece ... would they know how to prevent it from spreading to other countries?" said Jacob Kierkegaard, a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

U.S. officials will be "looking for assurances that the Europeans are aware of what's needed to keep the euro together and are willing to take those measures."

The meetings begin Friday evening with an economics-focused summit at Camp David, the presidential retreat near Washington. They will end Saturday evening. Most of the officials will join a larger group of international leaders in Chicago for a national-security oriented NATO summit Sunday and Monday.

Investors have been shaken by the power vacuum in debt-stricken Greece. They fear the consequences if Greece refuses to impose deep spending cuts agreed to under a bailout deal. They worry that the bailout could collapse, toppling Greece's economic and banking system and forcing the nation from the eurozone.

Should that happen, larger governments in Spain or Italy that are struggling to ease their debt loads might soon fail. The eurozone itself could splinter. The result could be a global crisis to rival the one that followed the 2008 collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers.

Behind the turmoil is a growing realization that cost-cutting alone will not solve Europe's crisis. Europe's governments have begun to seek ways to energize the continent's economy. Yet when money is tight and borrowing costs are high, governments have little ability to quickly stimulate growth.

Speaking to business leaders before leaving for the G8 summit, British Prime Minister David Cameron warned Thursday that the eurozone must "make up, or it is looking at a potential breakup."

"Either Europe has a committed, stable, successful eurozone with an effective firewall, well-capitalized and regulated banks, a system of fiscal burden sharing, and supportive monetary policy across the eurozone - or we are in uncharted territory, which carries huge risks for everybody," Cameron said in a speech in Manchester.

The Obama administration is also concerned that shocks from Europe could slow the U.S. economy and threaten President Barack Obama's re-election prospects.

Yet it's also aware there's no simple solution. European countries are straining under high borrowing costs. Their lending rates are high because investors are nervous about their debt loads relative to the strength of the economies.

Under pressure from Germany, Europe's strongest economy, governments have laid off workers, cut pay for others, reduced spending on social programs and imposed higher taxes and fees to boost revenue.

Yet as economies have shrunk, countries' debt as a percentage of their economies has worsened. Leaders are increasingly recognizing that budget-cutting must be paired with steps to invigorate Europe's economies.

The United States, along with Japan and Canada, is expected to push Merkel to do more to spur growth in Europe. Germany has begun to accept such an approach after the election of pro-growth Francois Hollande to the French presidency and the fall of a pro-austerity Dutch government.

Among the growth measures some economists recommend are reducing regulations for small businesses, making it easier for workers to find jobs across the eurozone and relaxing barriers that countries have created to protect their industries.

Germany has already negotiated higher public sector wages, a step that could encourage Germans to increase their purchases of goods from more troubled European economies.

"That is the one thing Barack Obama will try to impress on Angela Merkel," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State's Martin Smith School of Business. But most stimulative measures take time - up to a decade, in some cases - to kick in. They will not much help a Europe that needs much stronger growth now.

Joaquin Almunia, the European Union's top antitrust official and its former economic and monetary affairs commissioners, argued Wednesday that the eurozone lacks a growth strategy that can co-exist with short-term steps to shrink government debts.

"We cannot offer to the public an adjustment period of 10 years," Almunia said.

Claudia Schmucker, an economist at the German Council on Foreign Relations, thinks that while Merkel won't drop her austerity demands she will eventually agree to some growth measures.

A growth agreement among European leaders would at least "show that we are doing something," Schmucker said.

In light of all the obstacles, expectations are low for a breakthrough at Camp David this weekend.

"There will be nothing here that tackles the fundamental key questions looming over the global economy," Kierkegaard said.

The criminal charges are the first to be filed since police launched a new inquiry into phone hacking in January 2011. Previously, two people were jailed in 2007 for hacking the phones of members of the royal household.

Brooks, 43, who quit as News International chief executive in July, faces three separate allegations of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice - an offense that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Alison Levitt, the principal legal advisor to Britain's Director of Public Prosecutions, said that Brooks is alleged to have concealed material from police - including computers and other electronic devices - and is accused of removing seven boxes of material from News International archives. Brooks' husband Charlie Brooks, a racehorse trainer; Brooks' former personal assistant Cheryl Carter; the ex-head of security at News International Mark Hanna; Brooks' ex-chauffeur Paul Edwards; and Daryl Jorsling, a member of the firm's security staff, also face allegations of obstruction of justice.

Levitt confirmed that a seventh person, who was also a member of News International security staff, would not face any charges.

"All these matters relate to the ongoing police investigation into allegations of phone hacking and corruption of public officials in relation to the News of the World and The Sun newspapers," Levitt said.

The offenses are all alleged to have taken place in the frantic days last July when Rupert Murdoch closed down the 168-year-old News of The World amid widespread public disgust over revelations that it had hacked the cell phone of a missing schoolgirl who was later found dead. Murdoch announced his decision on July 7, 2011.

Levitt said the alleged offenses took place between July 6 and July 19. In a statement, Brooks and her husband said the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service to file charges was unjust.

"We deplore this weak and unjust decision. After the further unprecedented posturing of the CPS we will respond later today after our return from the police station," the couple said in a statement.

Levitt said that all six would appear for hearings at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

No dates have been set for the hearings.

Carter's lawyer Henri Bradman said in a statement that Brooks' former assistant "vigorously denies the commission" of any offense.

He said that the ex-aide was suffering the "most unhappy period of her life." Brooks, who spent more than 20 years working in the News Corp. empire - rising from a junior employee to chief executive - remains on police bail over separate allegations related to illegal eavesdropping, and will face more questions from detectives on that issue in the coming months.

Last week, she was questioned by Britain's media ethics inquiry over her close links to leading politicians - including Prime Minister David Cameron, a neighbor and longtime friend of her husband.

She acknowledged that while serving as a news executive she had frequently traded text messages with Cameron, and that he had sent her a message of support as she stepped down amid the scandal.

Separately, police said Tuesday that two people had been arrested in their investigation into the alleged bribery of public officials by tabloid reporters seeking scoops.

A 50-year-old man who works for Britain's Revenue and Customs department, which handles taxes and welfare payments, was detained on suspicion of misconduct in a public office.

A 43-year-old woman was arrested over an allegation of assisting misconduct in a public office and money laundering offenses.

Detectives said that both arrests were the result of information supplied by News Corp.'s management standards committee, which has turned over evidence of alleged wrongdoing.

Five other students were injured in the accident early Saturday, including one who was in critical condition.

Boston University spokesman Colin Riley said those killed in the accident were Daniela Lekhno, 20, of Manalapan, N.J.; Austin Brashears, 21, of Huntington Beach, Calif.; and Roch Jauberty, 21, whose parents live in Paris.

The students were traveling in a minivan near the North Island vacation town of Taupo when the van drifted to the side of the road and then rolled when the driver tried to correct course, New Zealand police said.

Three of the students died at the scene, police said. Another woman was in critical condition at a hospital, while four other students sustained moderate injuries. New Zealand police said Sunday two injured victims - both women, one 20 and the other 21 - remain hospitalized in stable condition. The other two injured in the crash - a 20-year-old man and 20-year-old woman - were released Saturday.

Another BU student, Margaret Theriault, was airlifted from the crash site to a hospital in Taupo and remained in critical condition a day after the accident. In a statement Sunday afternoon, local health official Mary Anne Gill said the 21-year-old woman had surgery Saturday night and was in intensive care.

New Zealand police spokeswoman Kim Perks said Sunday that any suggestion as to the cause of the crash at this stage is "just speculation," and that the investigation into the accident "will take some time."

Efforts by The Associated Press to reach family members of Lekhno and Brashears were unsuccessful Saturday. A person who answered the phone at the home of Lekhno's family declined to comment, and a message left at a phone listing for Brashears' family wasn't immediately returned.

Brashears' mother, Julie, told The Boston Globe that he frequently posted new photos on Facebook documenting his adventures in New Zealand, including bungee-jumping off the Auckland Harbor Bridge on his birthday. She said he planned weekend outings for the study abroad group.

"Everyone called him the cruise director," she said. "He wanted to include everybody on the trips. He loved having an eclectic group of friends."

Student body president Howard Male, a friend of Brashears, said the Boston University students had posted Facebook updates in anticipation of the trip, saying they hoped to view scenery captured on film in the "Lord of the Rings" movies.

"They were all so excited to be able to go explore what many guidebooks ... have called some of the most beautiful places on the planet," Male said.

At the university, final exams ended Friday, and there were few outward signs of any socializing on Saturday morning. The student union was deserted. The main activity involved students in the dorms hauling out boxes and pushing rolling bins filled with their belongings to waiting moving trucks or their parents' cars as they scurried to meet a noon deadline to clear out.

Student Marcelle Richard, who was moving out after finishing her freshman year, said news of the other students' deaths was "really upsetting."

"They were abroad, and it's so sad that something has to happen when you are supposed to be experiencing one of the best times of your life," said Richard, 18.

Richard, of New Orleans, said the tragedy will not stop her from going abroad to study later in her college career.

"It's just like tragedies happen, and I don't want that to stop me from a good learning experience," she said.

Jordan Nunez, 22, a senior who is graduating next week, said the study abroad program is very popular among Boston University students. He estimates 25 percent to 30 percent of his friends traveled to foreign countries to study.

Still, the New Zealand accident has darkened the mood on campus, he said.

"You think everything's always taken care for you, but things can happen wherever you are in the world," he said. "It's just something that's sad for our community."

Study abroad program executive director Bernd Widdig called the students' deaths an "unprecedented tragedy," the worst to hit the program since it began in the 1980s. The New Zealand part of the program began in 2003 and involves courses at the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology.

About 250 students, faculty members and well-wishers gathered in Boston on Saturday evening for a candlelight vigil for the victims.

Brashears' girlfriend, junior Tori Pinheiro, cried at the vigil as she recalled how friendly he was and how much she loved him. She said he recently had left her a voicemail saying he missed her and she has been playing it repeatedly.

University President Robert Brown called the students' deaths "a horrible tragedy" and said in an online statement his "prayers go out to the students and their families."

All the students except Theriault were enrolled in a BU study abroad program in Auckland, the BU website said. Theriault was enrolled in a study abroad program in Sydney, Australia.

Sixteen students were traveling in two minivans, on their way to hike the Tongariro Crossing, a famous trek rated as one of the most spectacular in New Zealand. The hike crosses a volcanic crater in the central part of North Island.

None of the eight students in the second van was injured. Seven of those eight students were also from Boston University.

Police official Kevin Taylor said it was unclear why the van drifted to the side of the road. He said some of the students were thrown from the vehicle, indicating they may not have been wearing seat belts.

Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore said it was a terrible end to the year at the school, where commencement is scheduled for May 20.

"This is an unusual time on our campus," Elmore said in a statement on the school website. "We have a lot of people who are traveling and some people who are celebrating the end of final exams. I'd like everyone to please take a moment to pay our respects to the families of those who have been killed."

Mexico's organized crime groups often abandon multiple bodies in public places as warnings to their rivals, though Nuevo Leon state Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said he did not rule out the possibility that the victims were U.S.-bound migrants.

The bodies of the 43 men and six women were found in the town of San Juan on the non-toll highway to the border city of Reynosa at about 4 a.m. (5 a.m. EDT; 0900 GMT), forcing police and troops to close off the highway. Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said at a news conference that a banner left at the site bore a message with the Zetas drug cartel taking responsibility for the massacre.

Domene said the fact the bodies were found with the heads, hands and feet cut off will make identification difficult. The bodies were being taken to Monterrey for DNA tests.

De la Garza said the victims could have been killed as long as two days ago at another location, then transported to San Juan, a town in Cadereyta municipality, about 105 miles (175 kilometers) west-southwest of McAllen, Texas, or 75 miles (125 kilometers) southwest of the Roma, Texas, border crossing.

Mexican drug cartels have been waging an increasingly bloody war to control smuggling routes, the local drug market and extortion rackets, including shakedowns of migrants seeking to reach the United States.

A drug gang allied with the Sinaloa cartel left 35 bodies at a freeway overpass in the city of Veracruz in September, and police found 32 other bodies, apparently killed by the same gang, a few days after that. The goal apparently was to take over territory that had been dominated by the Zetas. Twenty-six bodies were found in November in Guadalajara, another territory being disputed by the Zetas and the Sinaloa group.

So far this month, 23 bodies were found dumped or hanging in the city of Nuevo Laredo and 18 were found along a highway south of Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city.

In April, police found the mutilated bodies of 14 men in a minivan abandoned in downtown Nuevo Laredo, along with a message from an undisclosed drug gang. Also in April, the tortured and bound bodies of seven men were dumped in the Pacific port city of Lazaro Cardenas along with messages signed by allies of the Sinaloa drug gang.

Officials last year found 183 bodies in mass graves in the Tamaulipas state town of San Fernando. They were believed to have been migrants killed by the Zetas drug cartel. Another 72 migrants, many of them from Central America, were found slain in San Fernando in 2010.

Hospital officials had pronounced dead Hamdi Hafez al-Nubi, who came from the village of Naga al-Simman in the southern province of Luxor, after he suffered a heart attack while working.

His family says grieving relatives took him home and, according to Islamic tradition, washed his body and prepared him for burial Friday evening.

A doctor sent to sign the death certificate found it strange that his body was warm. At closer observation she discovered he was still alive.

His mother fainted upon hearing the good news.

With the doctor's assistance, both al-Nubi and his mother were awakened and soon were celebrating with guests.

Details emerging about the latest unraveled plot revealed that a Saudi double agent fooled the terror group, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, passing himself off as an eager would-be suicide bomber. Instead, he secretly turned over the group's most up-to-date underwear bomb to Saudi Arabia, which gave it to the CIA. Before he was whisked to safety, the spy provided intelligence that helped the CIA kill al-Qaida's senior operations leader, Fahd al-Quso, who died in a drone strike last weekend.

The role of Saudi Arabia disrupting the plot follows warnings in 2010 from the oil-rich kingdom about a plot to blow up cargo planes inside the U.S., either on runways or over American cities. That plot involved a frantic chase across five countries of two packages containing bombs powerful enough to down an airplane.

Twice, a bomb was aboard a passenger plane. Once, authorities were just minutes too late to stop a cargo jet with a bomb from departing for its next destination. Ultimately, no one died and the packages never exploded.

It hasn't always been this way.

Saudi Arabia, the one-time home of Osama bin Laden, failed to spot and stop the 15 Saudi-born hijackers of the 19 who carried out the September 2001 terror attacks. Questions remain whether two Saudi citizens who had at least indirect links with two of the hijackers were reporting to Saudi government officials. U.S. law enforcement officials accused the Saudi government of failing to help adequately in investigations of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and Hezbollah's bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen in 1996.

But a series of devastating al-Qaida strikes against Saudi targets in 2003 and more recently, fears al-Qaida could try to trigger Arab Spring-style revolts in the kingdom, has energized the Saudi government in its war against al-Qaida's spinoff in Yemen, which is composed mostly of ex-Saudi militants. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. - with help from Yemen's government - have joined forces to penetrate the terror group at the highest levels. Drone strikes have killed U.S.-born Anwar al-Awlaki last summer and al-Quso, his successor, more recently.

Al-Quso personally briefed the Saudi double agent, giving him open-ended instructions to pick a U.S.-bound plane on a day of his choosing. Al-Quso was hit in part due to information gleaned from the double-agent, according to two former officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to preserve their ability to discuss details of current intelligence matters with current officials.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday that the FBI is examining the new al-Qaida bomb and urged Congress to renew wide-ranging surveillance authority to thwart similar terrorism plots.

The FBI is attempting to replicate bomb, trying to determine how destructive the bomb would have been and how easy it would be for AQAP to build another. The device is al-Qaida's 2.0 version of the underwear bomb that very nearly brought down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in 2009. This one was also nonmetallic, but is less bulky than the previous version, now shaped to fit nearly invisibly inside underwear to escape detection by security pat downs, two officials said.

Its trigger mechanism was also improved, replacing the flawed trigger design that failed to ignite the explosives in the previous attack.

The bomb bears the hallmarks of al-Qaida's master bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri , or one of his protégés, multiple officials say. U.S. officials had hoped the bomber was killed in the strike last year on al-Awlaki, but evidence emerged he was still around ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Navy SEAL raid that killed bin Laden.

"So Asiri is likely still out there, and he can still build these," or teach others to build them, said House Intelligence Committee member Adam Schiff, D-Calif. "So it's not as though we can rest any easier."

Al-Asiri's role also makes this particular mission personal for Saudi Arabia.

Saudi-born al-Asiri also turned his own brother into a suicide bomber in 2009, targeting Saudi Arabia's top counterterrorism official, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. The brother exploded a cavity bomb, killing himself, and injuring the prince.

Nayef's forces are thought to have played a key role in sending the double agent that nabbed al-Asiri's latest handiwork.

A tip from Saudi intelligence services led authorities in Dubai and Britain to uncover the al-Asiri-made the U.S.-bound parcel bombs sent from Yemen in 2010. Yemeni authorities have said they believe the tip came from an AQAP operative, Jabir al-Fayfi.

Held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before going through a Saudi militant rehab program, al-Fayfi may have been working as a double agent planted by Riyadh, Yemeni officials said.

White House counterterorrism chief John Brennan publicly thanked the Saudis for their role in stopping the cargo plane plot. Brennan's personal ties have helped forge a closer Saudi relationship. A fluent Arabic speaker, he was once the CIA's chief of station in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia's intelligence services were also galvanized into their current more aggressive action after suicide bombers killed some 35 people at housing compounds for Westerners in Riyadh, in 2003, according to Philip Mudd, a former senior FBI and CIA official.

"The Saudis got serious and came up with a list of targets, and took them all down," Mudd said. "It got too hot for al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia. They got squeezed out."

Saudi militants fled southward, to the relative safety of Yemen. Exiled from their homeland, and some now disillusioned with al-Qaida, they are a ripe target to be turned by Saudi intelligence, Mudd said.

The U.S. intelligence relationship with the Saudis waxes and wanes, said former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Heokstra, R-Mich.

Before the Arab Spring left the Saudi royal family fearing for its rule, "the relationship was fraught with distrust, a lack of cooperation and coordination," Hoekstra said. Now, neither nation can afford to have al-Qaida in the neighborhood, he said.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene said paramedics wearing rubber gloves were collecting human remains from the pavement after the explosions. Heavily damaged cars and pickup trucks stood smoldering in the area. The blasts ripped the facade off a military intelligence building, which appeared to be the target of the attack.

More than 370 people also were wounded in the attack, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The ministry, which is in charge of the country's internal security, said the explosives weighed more than 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds)

Central Damascus is under the tight control of forces loyal to President Bashar Assad but has been struck by several bomb attacks, often targeting security installations or convoys, since the revolt against him began in March 2011.

The government blames the bombings on the terrorists it says are behind the uprising, which has been the most potent challenge to the Assad family dynasty in Syria in four decades. But opposition leaders and activists routinely blame the regime for orchestrating the attacks, saying they help it demonize the opposition and maintain support among those who fear greater instability.

There was no claim of responsibility for Thursday's blasts. But an al-Qaida-inspired group has claimed responsibility for several past explosions, raising fears that terrorist groups are entering the fray and exploiting the chaos.

Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the Norwegian head of the U.N.'s cease-fire monitors in the country, toured the site Thursday and said the Syrian people do not deserve this "terrible violence."

"It is not going to solve any problems," he said, when asked what his message was to those who are carrying out such attacks. "It is only going to create more suffering for women and children."

The relentless violence in the country has brought a cease-fire plan brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan to the brink of collapse.

On Thursday, Annan appealed for calm and an end to bloodshed.

"The Syrian people have already suffered too much," Annan said in a statement.

Thursday's explosions went off seconds apart at about 7:50 a.m. during the morning rush hour. Witnesses said the first explosion attracted curious passers-by. But seconds later, the second, far larger explosion went off, causing massive damage.

Syrian TV showed shaken young girls in tears who said they were in the Qazaz First Elementary School when the blast occurred. An hour after the blast, the school's gates were closed and no one was inside.

The explosions left two craters at the gate of the military compound, one of them 3 meters (10 feet) deep and 6 meters (20 feet) wide.

"The house shook like it was an earthquake," housewife Maha Hijazi said as she stood outside her house across the street from the targeted compound.

The latest major explosion in the capital occurred on April 27 when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt near members of the security forces, killing at least nine people and wounding 26.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi posted a message on his Facebook page urging people to go to hospitals to donate blood.

The previous deadliest attack in Damascus occurred on Dec. 23, when two car bombers blew themselves up outside the heavily guarded compounds of Syria's intelligence agencies, killing at least 44 people.

On March, 17, two suicide car bombers struck in near-simultaneous attacks on heavily guarded intelligence and security buildings in Damascus, killing at least 27 people. On Jan. 6, an explosion at a Damascus intersection killed 26, including many policemen.

The Russian leader told Obama by phone that he is unable to join the other leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations meeting outside Washington on May 18-19 because he needs to finish work setting up his new Cabinet, the White House said. The Obama administration had moved the gathering to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland from the planned venue in Chicago partly to accommodate Putin.

Putin's change of heart appeared to take the White House by surprise. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon had traveled to Moscow last week to discuss the G-8 agenda and other issues with Putin and other leaders.

There was no immediate confirmation of the change in plans from the Kremlin.

Putin took power this week, returning after six years to a post he had previously held for two terms. He made sharp criticism of the United States a central theme in his election, but it is not clear whether he will pull back from cooperation with the United States in several areas begun by former President Dmitry Medvedev.

"The two presidents reiterated their interest in the sustained high-level dialogue that has characterized the reset of relations and the substantial progress of the last three years," since Obama took office, the White House said in a statement outlining the phone call Wednesday.

The statement listed several areas of cooperation such as nuclear security and nonproliferation, the war in Afghanistan and Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. It did not mention whether the leaders discussed areas of disagreement, such as the international response to violence in Syria.

Medvedev, who changed places with his mentor Putin as Russia's prime minister, will fill in for Putin at the G-8 meeting, the White House said. Obama made headlines at his last meeting with Medvedev at a nuclear security summit in South Korea in March, when Obama was overheard saying he would have more flexibility to work with Russia on missile defense after the U.S. presidential election.

Republicans pounced on the remark, saying the president has a hidden agenda that could include concessions to the Russians if he wins re-election.

Russian opposition to U.S. and NATO plans for a missile defense shield in Europe was the subtext of a surprise announcement earlier this spring of a change in venue for the G-8 meeting. The summit was long planned to take place adjacent to a larger summit of NATO leaders in Chicago.

Putin let it be known that he did not want to attend the NATO summit, as Russian leaders sometimes do by invitation, or engage NATO leaders on the missile issue, U.S. and other diplomats said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. The missile defense plan is on the NATO agenda for Chicago, although most of the summit discussions are likely to center on Afghanistan.

The switch to Camp David was partly an attempt by the U.S. to appear welcoming to Putin, so that he could meet quietly with European and other large powers at the dawn of his presidency without the awkward juxtaposition with NATO and the missile shield issue, the diplomats said.

The White House said Obama and Putin agreed to meet next month on the sidelines of another economic gathering, the larger G-20 summit in Mexico.

Jean Frederic Godoc, 29, of Paris, France, pleaded guilty to both charges, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. Godoc faces a statutory maximum of 30 years in prison for the crimes.

Between September 1, 2011, and December 22, 2011, a member of the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, who was operating undercover, entered a website which is frequented by those who have a sexual interest in children. Godoc and the undercover officer communicated online over the three-month period, and the defendant indicated an interest in traveling to the United States and having a sexual relationship with an underage girl.

In arranging the visit, Godoc offered to bring presents for the girl and her younger sister, the Attorney’s office said.

In December, Godoc boarded a plane in Paris and traveled to the United States. Once he arrived, bearing his computer and the promised gifts, he was arrested.

The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger's underwear, but this time al-Qaida developed a more refined detonation system, U.S. officials said.

The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.

The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or bought his plane tickets when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb, officials said. It's not immediately clear what happened to the alleged bomber.

The operation unfolded even as the White House and Department of Homeland Security assured the American public that they knew of no al-Qaida plots against the U.S. around the anniversary of bin Laden's death.

The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way. Once those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.

U.S. officials, who were briefed on the operation, insisted on anonymity to discuss the case.

It's not clear who built the bomb, but, because of its sophistication and its similarity to the Christmas bomb, authorities suspected it was the work of master bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. Al-Asiri constructed the first underwear bomb and two others that al-Qaida built into printer cartridges and shipped to the U.S. on cargo planes in 2010.

The man who tried to detonate the Christmas bomb on an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was sentenced to life in prison in February. He pleaded guilty to trying to blow up the Northwest Airlines jet several months earlier.

Both of those bombs used a powerful industrial explosive. Both were nearly successful.

The operation is an intelligence victory for the United States and a reminder of al-Qaida's ambitions, despite the death of bin Laden and other senior leaders. Because of instability in the Yemeni government, the terrorist group's branch there has gained territory and strength. It has set up terrorist camps and, in some areas, even operates as a de facto government.

But along with the gains there also have been losses. The group has suffered significant setbacks as the CIA and the U.S. military focus more on Yemen. On Sunday, Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaida leader, was hit by a missile as he stepped out of his vehicle along with another operative in the southern Shabwa province of Yemen.

Al-Quso, 37, was on the FBI's most wanted list, with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. He was indicted in the U.S. for his role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, in which 17 American sailors were killed and 39 injured.

Al-Quso was believed to have replaced Anwar al-Awlaki as the group's head of external operations.

"My life is in your hands, Mr. President," Weinstein said in the video. "If you accept the demands, I live; if you don't accept the demands, then I die."

Weinstein was abducted last August in Lahore, Pakistan, after gunmen tricked his guards and broke into his home. The 70-year-old from Rockville is the country director in Pakistan for J.E. Austin Associates, a Virginia-based firm that advises a range of Pakistani business and government sectors.

In a video message posted on militant websites in December, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri said Weinstein would be released if the United States stopped airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. He also demanded the release of all al-Qaida and Taliban suspects around the world.

The White House says the Obama administration does not and will not negotiate with al-Qaida even though it is concerned about the safety and well-being of Weinstein.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration condemns the kidnapping of  Weinstein and called for his immediate release. Carney said he did not believe the president had seen the video. He said the government would continue to make efforts to have Weinstein released.

A woman who answered the phone Monday at a number listed for Weinstein in Rockville, Md., said she had no comment when an Associated Press reporter identified herself. Phone messages left for Weinstein's relatives were not immediately returned.

The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant messages, said Al-Sahab, al-Qaida's media arm, posted the Weinstein video on jihadist forums Sunday.

"It's important you accept the demands and act quickly and don't delay," Weinstein said in the video, addressing Obama. "There'll be no benefit in delaying, it will just make things more difficult for me."

He also appealed to Obama as a father. If the president responds to the militants' demands, Weinstein said, "then I will live and hopefully rejoin my family and also enjoy my children, my two daughters, like you enjoy your two daughters."

After his kidnapping, Weinstein's company said he was in poor health and provided a detailed list of medications, many of them for heart problems, that it implored the kidnappers to give him.

In the video released Sunday, Weinstein said he would like his wife, Elaine, to know "I'm fine, I'm well, I'm getting all my medications, I'm being taken care of."

Exuberant, diverse crowds filled the Place de la Bastille, the iconic plaza of the French Revolution, to fete Hollande's victory, waving French, European and labor union flags and climbing the column that rises at its center. Leftists are overjoyed to have one of their own in power for the first time since Socialist Francois Mitterrand was president from 1981 to 1995.

"Austerity can no longer be inevitable!" Hollande declared in his victory speech Sunday night after a surprising campaign that saw him transform from an unremarkable, mild figure to an increasingly statesmanlike one.

Sarkozy is the latest victim of a wave of voter anger at government spending cuts around Europe that have tossed out governments and leaders over the past couple of years.

In Greece, a parliamentary vote Sunday is seen as critical to the country's prospects for pulling out of a deep financial crisis felt in world markets. A state election in Germany and local elections in Italy were seen as tests of support for the national government's policies.

Hollande promised help for France's downtrodden after years under the Sarkozy, a man many voters saw as too friendly with the rich and blamed for economic troubles.

Hollande said European partners should be relieved and not frightened by his presidency.

"I am proud to have been capable of giving people hope again," Hollande told huge crowds of supporters in his electoral fiefdom of Tulle in central France. "We will succeed!"

Hollande inherits an economy that's a driver of the European Union but is deep in debt. He wants more government stimulus, and more government spending in general, despite concerns in the markets that France needs to urgently trim its huge debt.

Sarkozy conceded defeat minutes after the polls closed, saying he had called Hollande to wish him "good luck" as the country's new leader.

Sarkozy, widely disliked for budget cuts and his handling of the economy during recent crises, said he did his best to win a second term, despite widespread anger at his handling of the economy.

"I bear responsibility ... for the defeat," he said. "I committed myself totally, fully, but I didn't succeed in convincing a majority of French. ... I didn't succeed in making the values we share win."

With 75 percent of the vote counted, official results showed Hollande with 51.1 percent of the vote compared with Sarkozy's 48.9 percent, the Interior Ministry said. The CSA, TNS-Sofres and Ipsos polling agencies all predicted a Hollande win as well.

Hollande has virtually no foreign policy experience but he will face his first tests right after his inauguration, which must happen no later than May 16.

Among his first trips will be to the United States later this month for summits of NATO - where he will announce he is pulling French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year - and the Group of Eight leading world economies.

Hollande's first challenge will be dealing with Germany: He wants to re-negotiate a hard-won European treaty on budget cuts that Germany's Angela Merkel and Sarkozy had championed. He promises to make his first foreign trip to Berlin to work on a relationship that has been at the heart of Europe's postwar unity.

Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, congratulated Hollande on Sunday night and said both countries will keep on cooperating closely in driving the European Union's policies and be "a stabilizing factor and a motor for the European Union."

At home, Hollande intends to modify one of Sarkozy's key reforms, over the retirement age, to allow some people to retire at 60 instead of 62. He also plans to increase spending in a range of sectors and wants to ease France off its dependence on nuclear energy. He favors legalizing euthanasia and gay marriage.

Sarkozy supporters call those proposals misguided.

"We're going to call France the new Greece," said Laetitia Barone, 19. "Hollande is now very dangerous."

Sarkozy had said he would quit politics if he lost, but was vague about his plans Sunday night.

"You can count on me to defend these ideas, convictions," he said, "but my place cannot be the same."

His political allies turned their attention to parliamentary elections next month.

People of all ages and different ethnicities celebrated Hollande's victory at the Bastille. Ghylaine Lambrecht, 60, who celebrated the 1981 victory of Mitterrand at the Bastille, was among them.

"I'm so happy. We had to put up with Sarko for 10 years," she said referring to Sarkozy's time as interior and finance minister and five years as president. "In the last few years the rich have been getting richer. Now long live France, an open democratic France."

"It's magic!" said Violaine Chenais, 19. "I think Francois Hollande is not perfect, but it's clear France thinks its time to give the left a chance. This means real hope for France. We're going to celebrate with drink and hopefully some dancing."

Americans might get squeamish at the thought of their favorite snacks being tweaked. But what works in the U.S. doesn't always work everywhere.

In other words, Lee Linthicum, a market researcher, says: "It can't be some generic mix of spices that might fool an American."

Food makers long have tinkered with their products to appeal to regional tastes, but getting the recipe just right is becoming more important than ever. That's partly because people in developing nations such as China and India are gaining more of an appetite for American-style "on-the-go" foods as they work longer hours and have less time to cook. But it's mostly because snack makers increasingly are looking for growth in other parts of the world as sales slow at home.

Growth in the snack food industry has been virtually flat in the U.S. for the past two years, according to market research firm Euromonitor. Meanwhile, combined sales in China, Brazil and Russia — three major developing markets — rose 15 percent in 2010 and 11 percent last year to $17 billion. That's half the size of the U.S. market but it's growing.

SNACKS IN A DIFFERENT LAND

The challenge for snack makers is that people in other countries have different tastes. Consider the Oreo, which Kraft Food Inc. introduced in China in 1996. Sales of the vanilla cream-filled chocolate cookie sandwich were respectable there, but the Chinese didn't completely take to it.

So Kraft decided to tweak the Oreo. But executives of the Northfield, Ill.-based company knew that they had to proceed with caution. "When you have a brand that's 100 years old, you don't mess with the recipe thoughtlessly," says Lorna Davis, head of the company's global biscuit and cookies business.

In 2006, Kraft began offering the Oreo as a wafer, a popular cookie throughout Asia. It is made up of cream sandwiched between crispy wafers. The plan was to help familiarize more Chinese customers with the brand. Three years later, the company decided to go a step further.

Kraft worked with a panel of consumer taste experts from around the world to identify the characteristics of the Oreo — including color, crunchiness, bitterness, color — that were likely to appeal to Chinese tastes. Executives learned through research that the Chinese don't like their treats as big or as sweet as Americans do. So the company rejiggered the recipe to create a cookie that was a tad smaller and a touch less sweet.

To test the new recipe, hundreds of Chinese consumers tasted the new Oreo. It was a hit. "It made us realize the smallest of details make a big difference," Davis says.

But the company wasn't finished. After noticing sales of Oreos were lagging in China during the summer, Kraft added a green tea ice cream flavor. The cookie combined a popular local flavor with the cooling imagery of ice cream. The green tea version sold well, and a year later, Kraft rolled out Oreos in flavors that are popular in Asians desserts — raspberry-and-blueberry and mango-and-orange.

The result? Over the past five years, Kraft said sales have grown an average of 60 percent a year, although it declined to give revenue amounts. The Oreo now is the top-selling cookie in China with a market share of 13 percent. The previous top cookie was a biscuit by a Chinese company.

Kraft, which operates in more than 80 countries, is taking a similar approach with other snacks. In Saudi Arabia, Kraft offers its Tang powder drink in a lemon-pepper flavor. In Mexico, it comes in tropical fruit flavors like tamarind and mandarin, and a hibiscus version fashioned after the flower. Sales have nearly doubled to $1 billion worldwide since Kraft rolled out the localized versions in 2006.

Kraft's ability to adapt to local tastes is increasingly important as it looks for growth overseas. The rise in international revenue at Kraft was more than double the increase in North America last year.

Kraft also plans to split into two separate units by the end of the year. The largest will be a global snacks company called Mondelez International, pronounced "mohn-dah-leez," to sell its Trident gum and Cadbury chocolates in fast-growing countries worldwide.

CAFFEINE WITH YOUR CEREAL?

Kellogg Co., the world's largest cereal maker, also has intensified its focus on catering to local tastes as it attempts to grow its snack business overseas.

Last year, the company's revenue in Latin America topped $1 billion for the first time. And in February, Kellogg said it agreed to buy Pringles chip brand from Procter & Gamble for $2.7 billion. The deal will nearly triple its international snack business, making it the world's second-largest snack maker behind Pepsi.

The company, based in Battle Creek, Mich., already sells products in more than 180 countries. It's learning that on-the-ground insights can pay off. In Europe, for instance, Kellogg for many years had marketed its cereals there just as it did in the U.S. But it failed to take into account that many in the region don't drink cold milk in the morning.

Now, an American traveling in Spain might find it surreal to see TV ads showing All-Bran cereal floating in a steaming cup of coffee. Kellogg, which makes Keebler, Cheez-It and Kashi bars, declined to give details on how well the cereal is selling there, but it said the marketing has resulted in "great results."

A similar story played out for PepsiCo. Inc. For the first time last year, revenue from the company's international food division surpassed revenue in North America. To achieve that, Pepsi has had to adjust its recipes.

In 2005, Pepsi's food division began a quest to make its Lay's potato chips more appealing to local tastes in Russia. It wasn't easy. Russians still like packaged versions of a Soviet-era snack — stale bread slathered in oil and baked to a crisp.

"Potato chips were not big in the Communist time, so it's something we're gradually building," says Marc Schroeder, who heads Pepsi's food division in Russia.

To get a better sense of what Russians like, employees traveled around the country to visit people in their homes and talk about what they eat day-to-day. That was a big task. Russia has nine time zones and spans 7,000 miles, with eating habits that vary by region.

The findings were invaluable for executives at the company's Purchase, N.Y. headquarters. In the eastern part of the country, Pepsi found that fish is a big part of the diet. So it introduced "Crab" chips in 2006. It's now the third most popular flavor in the country.

A "Red Caviar" flavor does best in Moscow, where caviar is particularly popular. "Pickled Cucumber," which piggybacks off of a traditional appetizer throughout Russia, was introduced last year and is already the fourth most popular flavor. Other favorites include onion, bacon and "sour cream and herbs," which is a bit sweeter than the American version.

The chip translations are paying off; sales of Lay's have more than doubled in the past five years. As for the classic Lay's — an American favorite — Russians still aren't biting.

"They find it a very boring flavor," Schroeder said.

Lenami Godinez' boyfriend bought her the hang gliding lesson while the two were on vacation near Vancouver.

"I saw that she was no longer horizontal, and she was hanging vertically. And had in essence bear hugged...the pilot in command in an attempt to stay up. It looked like she was slipping down his body and eventually let go at the very end," witness Nicole Mclearn said.

But, what led up to the fall is a mystery -  at least for investigators.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police say Godinez' flight instructor and pilot, 50-year-old William Jon Orders, swallowed the memory chip containing a video recording of the flight. The 16-year veteran is charged with obstruction.

Orders remains in custody as police wait to see if the answers they need will re-appear intact.

Defense lawyer James Connell said a tentative trial date of May 2013 is a "placeholder" until true date can be set for the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the attacks, and his co-defendants.

"It's going to take time," said the chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, who said he expects to battle a barrage of defense motions before the case goes to trial.

"I am getting ready for hundreds of motions because we want them to shoot everything they can shoot at us," he said in the wake of Saturday's arraignment, which dragged on for 13 hours due to stalling tactics by the defendants.

"Everyone is frustrated by the delay," Martins said. He noted that the civilian trial of convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui took four years, and he pleaded guilty in 2006 before being sentenced to life in prison.

On Saturday, Mohammed and his co-defendants refused to respond to the judge or use the court's translation system and demanded a lengthy reading of the charges, tactics that Connell called "peaceful resistance to an unjust system."

The arraignment, Connell said, "demonstrates that this will be a long, hard-fought but peaceful struggle against secrecy, torture and the misguided institution of the military commissions."

The defendants' actions outraged relatives of the victims.

"They're engaging in jihad in a courtroom," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of the plane that flew into the Pentagon. She watched the proceeding from Brooklyn on one of the closed-circuit video feeds around the United States.

A handful of those who lost family members in the attacks were selected by a lottery and flown to watch the proceedings at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, where Mohammed and his co-defendants put off their pleas until a later date.

They face 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism in the 2001 attacks that sent hijacked jetliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The charges carry the death penalty.

The detainees' lawyers spent hours questioning the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, about his qualifications to hear the case and suggested their clients were being mistreated at the hearing, in a strategy that could pave the way for future appeals. Mohammed was subjected to a strip search and "inflammatory and unnecessary" treatment before court, said his attorney, David Nevin.

It was the defendants' first appearance in more than three years after stalled efforts to try them for the terror attacks.

The Obama administration renewed plans to try the men at Guantanamo Bay after a bid to try the men in New York City blocks from the trade center site hit political opposition. Officials adopted new rules with Congress that forbade testimony obtained through torture or cruel treatment, and they now say that defendants could be tried as fairly here as in a civilian court.

Eddie Bracken of Staten Island, New York, was one of the victims' relatives allowed to attend the hearing, and said it was important to him to see the people accused of killing his sister, Lucy Fishman, a Brooklyn mother of two who worked in the World Trade Center.

He said he came away with impressed with the military justice system, with defense lawyers putting up an aggressive defense.

"If they had done this another country it would have been a different story," Bracken said Sunday. "But this is America."

Human rights groups and defense lawyers say the secrecy of Guantanamo and the military tribunals will make it impossible for the defense. They argued the U.S. kept the case out of civilian court to prevent disclosure of the treatment of prisoners like Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced in 2009 that Mohammed and his co-defendants would be tried blocks from the site of the destroyed trade center in downtown Manhattan, but the plan was shelved after New York officials cited huge costs to secure the neighborhood and family opposition to trying the suspects in the U.S.

Congress then blocked the transfer of any prisoners from Guantanamo to the U.S., forcing the Obama administration to refile the charges under a reformed military commission system.

Mohammed, a Pakistani citizen who grew up in Kuwait and attended college in Greensboro, North Carolina, has admitted to military authorities that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks "from A to Z," as well as about 30 other plots, and that he personally killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Mohammed was captured in 2003 in Pakistan.

Ramzi Binalshibh was allegedly chosen to be a hijacker but couldn't get a U.S. visa and ended up providing assistance such as finding flight schools. Walid bin Attash, also from Yemen, allegedly ran an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and researched flight simulators and timetables. Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi is a Saudi accused of helping the hijackers with money, Western clothing, traveler's checks and credit cards. Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, a Pakistani national and nephew of Mohammed, allegedly provided money to the hijackers.

During the failed first effort to prosecute the men at the base in Cuba, Mohammed mocked the tribunal and said he and his co-defendants would plead guilty and welcome execution. The lawyers' statements indicate that plan has changed.

Chen fled an abusive house arrest in his rural town and sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy last week, but emerged under an agreement with Chinese authorities to guarantee his safety in another town.

But once out and escorted to a hospital for treatment of an injury, he had an apparent change of heart and appealed for U.S. help to leave the country altogether, creating a diplomatic predicament while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Beijing for high-level talks with Chinese officials.

The two sides were discussing his case while he remained in the hospital under a police cordon.

"Chen Guangcheng is currently being treated in hospital, " the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its Web site. "As a Chinese citizen, if he wants to study abroad he can go through the normal channels to the relevant departments and complete the formalities in accordance with the law like other Chinese citizens," the Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry statement was the most positive response so far from the Chinese side. It was in contrast to earlier comments from the ministry, which had demanded that the U.S. apologize for giving Chen sanctuary at the embassy.

There was no immediate comment from Chen or the U.S.

The statement came shortly after Chen told The Associated Press that was concerned for his safety, and complained that American officials have been blocked from seeing him for two days and friends who have tried to visit have been beaten up.

"I can only tell you one thing. My situation right now is very dangerous," Chen said, sounding anxious as he spoke by telephone from his hospital bed. "For two days, American officials who have wanted to come and see me have not been allowed in."

Chen said he spoke to American officials by phone on Friday, twice, "but the calls keep getting cut off after two sentences." A senior U.S. official said U.S. Embassy personnel also met Chen's wife in person.

Chen's high-profile pleas for sanctuary even included him calling in Thursday to a congressional hearing in Washington, in which he told lawmakers he wanted to meet Clinton. "I hope I can get more help from her," Chen said.

Chen last week escaped his rural home where local officials had kept him under house arrest for years. He made it to the U.S. Embassy, where he stayed for six days before the U.S. and China reached a deal that would allow him to stay in China but in a new location, as he had requested. But hours after leaving the embassy Wednesday he said he and his family would not be safe unless they left the country.

A self-taught lawyer, the 40-year-old Chen became an international human rights figure and inspiration to many ordinary Chinese after running afoul of local government officials for exposing forced abortions and sterilizations carried out as part of China's one-child policy.

Until his escape last week, his nearly seven years in prison and abusive house arrest with his wife, 6-year-old daughter and mother fueled outrage and added to his stature — and in turn upped the stakes for Washington in helping him.

Chen said throughout his stay at the U.S. Embassy that his desire was to remain in China with his family, and U.S. diplomats said that was their goal in negotiations with Chinese officials.

After several days of talks, U.S. officials said they extracted a guarantee that Chen would be relocated outside his home province to a university town where he could formally study law. U.S. officials said they would periodically monitor his situation, though they did not specify how.

But hours after a gleeful Chen left the U.S. compound, he changed his mind, driven in part by his wife's tales of abuse and retribution in the days after Chen managed to escape from his rural farmhouse. Chen also said he felt abandoned by the U.S., finding no embassy staff at the hospital to assure his protection.
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A selection of documents seized in last year's raid on bin Laden's Pakistan house was posted online Thursday by the U.S. Army's Combating Terrorism Center. The documents show dark days for al-Qaida and its hunkered-down leader after years of attacks by the United States and what bin Laden saw as bumbling within his own organization and its terrorist allies.

You can read the entire report from the Combating Terrorism Center here.

"I plan to release a statement that we are starting a new phase to correct (the mistakes) we made," bin Laden wrote in 2010. "In doing so, we shall reclaim, God willing, the trust of a large segment of those who lost their trust in the jihadis."

Until the end, bin Laden remained focused on attacking Americans and coming up with plots, however improbable, to kill U.S. leaders. He wished especially to target airplanes carrying Gen. David Petraeus and even President Barack Obama, reasoning that an assassination would elevate an "utterly unprepared" Vice President Joe Biden into the presidency and plunge the U.S. into crisis.

But a U.S. analysts' report released along with bin Laden's correspondence describes him as upset over the inability of spinoff terrorist groups to win public support for their cause, their unsuccessful media campaigns and poorly planned plots that, in bin Laden's view, killed too many innocent Muslims.

Bin Laden adviser Adam Gadahn urged him to disassociate their organization from the acts of al-Qaida's spinoff operation in Iraq, known as AQI, and bin Laden told other terrorist groups not to repeat AQI's mistakes.

The correspondence includes letters by then-second-in-command Abu Yahya al-Libi, taking Pakistani offshoot Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan to task over its indiscriminate attacks on Muslims. The al-Qaida leadership "threatened to take public measures unless we see from you serious and immediate practical and clear steps towards reforming (your ways) and dissociating yourself from these vile mistakes that violate Islamic Law," al-Libi wrote.

And bin Laden warned the leader of Yemeni AQAP, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, against attempting a takeover of Yemen to establish an Islamic state, instead saying he should "refocus his efforts on attacking the United States."

Bin Laden also seemed uninterested in recognizing Somali-based al-Shabab when the group pledged loyalty to him because he thought its leaders were poor governors of the areas they controlled and were too strict with their administration of Islamic penalties, like cutting off the hands of thieves.

The U.S. said the letters reflect al-Qaida's relationship with Iran - a point of deep interest to the U.S. government - as "not one of alliance, but of indirect and unpleasant negotiations" over some al-Qaida terrorists and their families who were imprisoned in Iran.

Nothing in the papers that were released points directly to al-Qaida sympathizers in Pakistan's government, although presumably such references would have remained classified. Bin Laden described "trusted Pakistani brothers" but didn't identify any Pakistani government or military officials who might have been aware or complicit in his hiding in Abbottabad.

It wasn't immediately clear how many of bin Laden's documents the U.S. was still keeping secret. In a note published with the 175 pages in Arabic that were released Thursday, along with English translations, retired Gen. John Abizaid said they probably represent only a small fraction of materials taken from the compound in the U.S. raid that tracked down and killed bin Laden in May 2011. The U.S. said the documents span September 2006 to April 2011.

Bin Laden was proud of the security measures that kept his family safe for many years, the report said. It said bin Laden boasted that his family "adhered to such strict measures, precluding his children from playing outdoors without the supervision of an adult who could keep their voices down."

The report said the Special Forces troops in the bin Laden raid were trained to search the home afterward for thumb drives, printed documents and what it described as "pocket litter" that might produce leads to other terrorists. "The end of the raid in Abbottabad was the beginning of a massive analytical effort," it said.

It said the personal files showed that, during one of the most significant manhunts in history, bin Laden was out of touch with the day-to-day operations of various terrorist groups inspired by al-Qaida. He was "not in sync on the operational level with its so-called affiliates," researchers wrote. "Bin Laden enjoyed little control over either groups affiliated with al Qaida in name or so-called fellow travelers."