Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) Sunday to spare the life of former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan citing a lack of evidence tying him to the 1982 Dujail killings for which he is charged. The court reconvenes on Monday to determine whether Ramadan's life sentence should be abandoned in favor of the death penalty.

Ramadan was convicted in November in connection with crimes against humanity committed in the town of Dujail in 1982. The IHT Appeals Chamber ruled December 26 in its decision upholding Saddam Hussein's death sentence that the life sentence for Ramadan was too lenient and ordered the trial court to re-sentence him. On Thursday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour filed an amicus brief with the court arguing that imposing the death penalty would be a violation of Iraq's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

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BEIJING – Envoys to international talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program struggled Friday to find a compromise as differences emerged over a Chinese proposal on how to begin disarmament.

Christopher Hill, the main U.S. envoy to the talks, said all sides agreed on the proposal's broader issues. Hill said the remaining issues focused on a single paragraph of the Chinese proposal for a set of reciprocal steps aimed at implementing a 2005 deal that calls for North Korea to disarm in exchange for security guarantees and aid.

Hill said the envoys were working to rewrite the text to address North Korea's concerns. He did not give any details.

“I think we can be cautiously optimistic,” Hill said after a two-hour lunch meeting with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, in the first bilateral session between the two sides at this week's talks.

Japan's envoy, Kenichiro Sasae, said while there was consensus on some points, but that there was no prospect of an imminent agreement.

“There are some parts in which we had progress but on others we ran into difficulty. We will continue with the talks, but at this point in time I don't feel there is a prospect of reaching an agreement,” Sasae said.

Kim said the meeting led to agreement on some unspecified issues, although there were still issues to overcome. “We are going to make more efforts to resolve them,” Kim said.

Late Thursday after the first day of talks, China distributed a draft agreement to the nuclear envoys from China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

The proposal – presented after North Korea agreed in principle to take initial steps to disarm – would grant the communist nation unspecified energy aid for shutting down its main nuclear facilities within two months, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Officials declined to confirm details of the draft.

Hill said earlier Friday he saw “differences” among the delegations over the draft deal.

A South Korean official also cautioned against being too optimistic. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, said it is “not as easy as expected to produce a result due to differences in positions and a conflict of interests.”

Both Hill and the South Korean official declined to elaborate on what the differences were.

But a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan said the North wants the U.S. first to show that it has permanently ceased its “hostile” policy toward Pyongyang.

“As conditions mature, (North Korea) can halt the operation of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities,” the Choson Sinbo said, referring to the site of the North's main nuclear complex north of Pyongyang.

“The (North)'s position is that it can take corresponding measures when the U.S. takes steps to show that it irreversibly gave up its hostile policy,” it said.

The report, carried on the paper's Web site, cited a “diplomatic source well versed in” the negotiations. The paper, with links to the government in Pyongyang, is considered one of the North's propaganda tools.

Any agreement on an initial set of reciprocal moves to implement a September 2005 accord – in which North Korea pledged to disarm in exchange for aid and security guarantees – would set the stage for the first tangible steps in the often-delayed six-nation process.

The 2005 deal, a broad statement of principles that did not outline any concrete steps for dismantling North Korea's nuclear program, was the only agreement since the negotiations began in 2003.

At the last session of the arms negotiations in December, following North Korea's Oct. 9 underground nuclear test, the North refused to even talk about its nuclear programs. Instead, it demanded the U.S. lift financial restrictions targeting alleged North Korean counterfeiting and money laundering.

Continually in the tabloids, actress and model Anna Nicole Smith continues to make headlines after her death, as her legal disputes remain undecided and U.S. authorities probe the cause of her sudden death.

Authorities said she was rushed to hospital on Thursday afternoon after a private nurse found her unconscious and unresponsive at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla. Smith, the 39-year-old former Playboy model, died Thursday.

Deputy Police Chief Michael Browne said Friday that officials have interviewed everyone connected to the death and no one was under suspicion."Nothing about this death seems suspicious. We're not treating it that way," Browne said. "We're being very thorough. We're going to look at everything."

The medical examiner's office also said it began conducting an autopsy on Friday morning. Dr. Joshua Perper, who was scheduled to perform the autopsy, had said Thursday that if Smith died of natural causes, the findings would likely be released quickly. However, definitive results could take weeks, he added.

Legal Issues

Smith had been embroiled in several legal disputes prior to her death, including a paternity suit over her five-month-old daughter.

Attorney Howard K. Stern, Smith's most recent partner, is listed as the baby's father on the birth certificate. However, her former boyfriend Larry Birkhead has claimed to be the infant's biological father.

An emergency court hearing into the paternity suit was scheduled for Friday in Los Angeles.

Just last week, Smith had been included in a class-action lawsuit against TrimSpa, which produces a weight-loss pill for which she served as spokesperson. The suit alleges the marketing of the weight-loss supplement was false and misleading.

Most prominently, however, Smith — a former Playboy covergirl, playmate of the year and Guess model — was involved in a decade-long battle over the fortune of her former husband, J. Howard Marshall.

The Houston-born Smith, a former topless dancer, was notorious for her relationship with the 89-year-old oil tycoon after meeting him at a Texas strip club. They had been married for 14 months when he died in 1995.

A federal court in California initially awarded Smith $474 million US, but the decision was later overturned. However, in May 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that she could continue her fight for the Marshall fortune.