Turkey's prime minister said Tuesday increased military action against separatist Kurdish rebels was "unavoidable" and pressed the United States for a crackdown on guerrilla bases in northern Iraq.

Turkish helicopters pounded rebel positions near the border with rockets for a second day and Turkey brought in troops by the truckload in an operation against mountainside emplacements.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told members of his party in parliament "it is now unavoidable that Turkey will have to go through a more intensive military process."

But he also suggested he was not seeking an immediate cross-border offensive against the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, holed up in bases in northern Iraq. "The responsibility of leadership does not allow for narrow mindedness, haste or heroism," he said.

"We must remember that Turkey is part of this world and diplomacy has certain requirements," Erdogan added, suggesting the world expected Turkey to exhaust all nonmilitary options.

Erdogan flies to Washington on Nov. 5 for talks with President Bush that could be key to whether Turkey carries out its threat of a major military incursion. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also expected in Turkey later this week.

"We will openly express that we expect urgent steps from the United States, which is our strategic partner and ally and has a special responsibility regarding Iraq," Erdogan said.

The United States, Iraq and other countries have been calling on Turkey to refrain from a cross-border campaign, which could throw one of the few stable areas in Iraq into chaos. A Turkish incursion would also put the United States in an awkward position with key allies: NATO-member Turkey, the Baghdad government and the self-governing Iraqi Kurds in the north.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush's discussions with Erdogan would include "the fight against terrorism _ in particular our joint efforts to counter the PKK."

Turkish Cobra attack helicopters blasted suspected PKK targets in the Mount Cudi area, near the southeastern border with Iraq for a second day, trying to hunt down some 100 rebels believed to be hiding in mountainside caves, the private Dogan news agency reported.

The fighting has claimed the lives of three Turkish soldiers and six guerrillas, local news reports said.

Transport helicopters flew in commando units to block possible rebel escape routes on Cudi, Dogan reported.

An AP Television News cameraman said attack helicopters escorted four Black Hawk helicopters on Cudi, as they airlifted soldiers to the mountain and picked others up. Smoke could be seen rising from areas that had been hit in the attacks.

Dogan reported a 100-vehicle military convoy traveling from Cizre toward the border.

A Kurdish political party warned that the fighting threatened to increase animosity between the Turkish and Kurdish populations in Turkey.

Turkey is "moving toward a dangerous war in our region which will seriously damage historical relations between Turks and Kurds," Nurettin Demirtas, a senior party official, told reporters.

Erdogan's Cabinet scheduled a meeting for Wednesday to discuss possible economic measures against groups supporting the Kurdish rebels.

Deputy Prime Minister Hayati Yazici said Turkey was considering a series of sanctions against the self-governing Kurdish administration in Iraq's north.

Yazici would not give any details, but the Iraqi region is heavily reliant on Turkish electricity and food imports, as well as Turkish investment in construction. There has been talk of shutting down the Habur border crossing _ the only vehicular route into Iraq from Turkey.

Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurd regional government, complained that economic sanctions "would represent a collective punishment against Kurdistan's people."

He warned that Turkey and the U.S. Army also would suffer if the border crossing was closed. About 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military there.

In an interview printed Tuesday in Turkey's Milliyet newspaper, Massoud Barzani, the leader of Iraq's Kurdish region, called for a peaceful solution to the crisis. He said that if the PKK did not give up violence, it would "confront not only Turkey but the whole Kurdish nation."

But he questioned Turkey's motives, suggesting it is interested in targeting not only the PKK but also Iraqi Kurds.

At least 46 people have been killed by the PKK in Turkey over the past month, according to government and media reports. Those included at least 30 Turkish soldiers killed in two ambushes that were the boldest attacks in years and increased domestic pressure on Erdogan to act.

Earl Wesley Berry was set to be executed at 6 pm (2300 GMT Tuesday), but the procedure was halted when the Mississippi Department of Corrections received the ruling from the Supreme Court ordering a stay of execution at 5:41 pm (2241 GMT).

"Now that the United States Supreme Court has deemed the method of execution needs to be reviewed, the state (of Mississippi) will await the final order of the court," read a Department of Corrections statement.

"The agency will work within any newly established guidelines to ensure that executions are carried out in a constitutional manner."

The Supreme Court did not give reasons for the stay or say who voted for or against it, but an earlier Court statement said that two of the court's conservative justices, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, opposed staying the execution.

Five votes of the seven top US justices must approve a stay of execution for it to be enacted.

Berry was on death row for killing a woman in 1987.

New details about the "protections" given Blackwater contractors allegedly involved in the shootings sparked outrage from congressional Democrats yesterday, along with a flood of letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from committee chairmen demanding more information.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who heads the Judiciary Committee as well as the appropriations subcommittee overseeing State's budget, called the contractor issue the latest example of the Bush administration's refusal to hold anyone from "their team" accountable for misconduct or incompetence. "If you get caught," Leahy said in a statement, "they will get you immunity. If you get convicted, they will commute your sentence."

Most of the questions centered on who had authorized what many critics interpreted as a form of immunity from prosecution and why such protections -- designed for government employees -- were extended to private contractors.

Meanwhile, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have reached agreement that the U.S. military command in Iraq will exert tighter controls over security contractors in Iraq, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said yesterday.

Preliminary guidelines established by a State-Defense working group include common training standards and rules for the use of force for contractors as well as coordination of all contractor "movements" with the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq. The new guidelines will be presented to the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker for review before Gates and Rice make a final decision in the matter, Morrell said.

Military officers have complained that contractors guarding U.S. diplomatic convoys interfere with military operations and that their aggressive behavior undermines efforts to win "hearts and minds" in Iraq.

One major concern for Gates involves keeping the military abreast of the movement of contractors through the combat zone, Morrell said. "If it is unsafe or deemed not advisable to go there, someone is going to have the control to say: 'No, not at this time.' It would be MNF-I [Multi-National Force-Iraq] that would have that authority. Ultimately, the military has to sign off, in the battle zone, of movements into particularly dangerous areas." The decision to offer Blackwater guards protection from any use of their statements was made by State Department personnel in Baghdad without approval from Washington, sources said. Department lawyers subsequently determined that decades-old federal court rulings required such guarantees against self-incrimination for all government employees during internal investigations; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that the protections also applied to federal contractors.

But the inability of State's own law enforcement branch to pursue a possible criminal case based on the Blackwater statements, as well growing controversy over the Sept. 16 shootings here and in Baghdad, led Rice early this month to ask the FBI to take over the investigation.

To avoid compromising their own investigation, a team of FBI agents sent to Baghdad was not allowed to speak to the original investigators about the case or see the statements. Some of the dozen or so Blackwater personnel involved, at least two of whom have returned to the United States, declined FBI interviews.

In a statement yesterday, the Justice Department confirmed that no broad immunity from prosecution had been granted. But in a reflection of law enforcement dismay over what are considered impediments to a criminal case, Justice added that it would proceed "knowing that this investigation involves a number of complex issues."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that State has no power to immunize anyone from federal criminal prosecution. "We would not have asked the FBI and the Department of Justice to get involved in a case that we did not think that they could potentially prosecute."

But several law enforcement officials, none of whom would speak on the record about an ongoing investigation, said it remained uncertain -- even without the protections -- whether the contractors could be prosecuted under U.S. law.

Boston legal powerhouse Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge is expanding across the pond. Edwards Angell announced plans yesterday to acquire U.K. law firm Kendall Freeman, adding some 50 London lawyers to its current stable of 550 attorneys, about half of whom work in Boston.

“London is the largest legal market by far in Britain and one of the largest anywhere in the world,” Edwards Angell’s Chip DeWitt said. “We think this merger gives us a great platform to add to the number of attorneys we have there.”

No cash will change hands as part of the deal, nor are any layoffs planned at Kendall Freeman, which specializes in insurance and reinsurance law. Instead, plans merely call for the British firm to phase in the “Edwards Angell” name over the next 18 months.

DeWitt said the deal also opens the door for Edwards Angell to help Kendall Freeman expand beyond insurance law. The U.S. firm specializes in several areas, including private equity, initial public offerings and patent law.

“The game plan would be to try to increase the number of attorneys in London,” DeWitt said.

Yesterday’s announcement came almost two years to the day after Providence’s Edwards Angell and Boston’s Palmer & Dodge - two old-line New England law firms - merged to create Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge.

Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly ranks the combined entity as the state’s sixth-largest firm in terms of how many Bay State attorneys it employs.

The justices appeared to support the pandering provision of a 2003 federal law that makes it a crime to promote, distribute or solicit material in a way intended to cause others to believe it contains child pornography.

They were hearing arguments in a case brought by the Bush administration urging them to uphold the law, after a U.S. appeals court struck down that provision on the grounds the government cannot suppress lawful free speech.

Bush administration lawyer Paul Clement argued that the law does not illegally infringe on free-speech or other rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

He said the law does not inhibit legitimate creative expression, and drew a distinction between mainstream movies and illegal child pornography.

"If you're taking a movie like 'Traffic' or 'American Beauty', which is not child pornography, and you're simply truthfully promoting it, you have nothing to worry about with this statute," Clement told the justices.

"Traffic" has a scene with the high-school daughter of the nation's drug czar appearing to have sex with a drug dealer; "Lolita" portrayed a middle-aged man's obsession with a young girl; "Titanic" depicted a love affair by a young couple on a doomed ship; and "American Beauty" involved a 42-year-old man's attraction to his daughter's best friend.

Chief Justice John Roberts asked the attorney who is challenging the law about the government's distinction between legitimate films and illegal child pornography.

David Syre, owner of Bellingham-based Trillium, would pay $50,000 to the SEC; his company would pay an additional $75,000. The defendants would be permanently barred from violating securities laws, and the SEC would end its civil case against them.

The deal must be approved by U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour.

The company, caught in a tangle of increasingly complex financial transactions designed to make it appear profitable, collapsed in 2004, leaving investors with more than $600 million in worthless securities.

The SEC's complaint, originally filed in September 2005, detailed deals in which Met sold land to Trillium and other developers.

The agency charged that Met, either directly or through its subsidiaries, disguised the fact it had financed all or most of the purchase price of the deals, so that it could improperly book the paper profits immediately.

In 2002, shortly before the end of its fiscal year, Met sold two vacant parcels in Everett and Texas to a Trillium-controlled entity called Jeff Properties for nearly $24 million.

Met also loaned the buyer most of the money needed for the purchase, replacing passive assets with supposedly profitable loans that would strengthen the company's numbers at a time it sought to raise money from investors.

In separate cases, the SEC in March settled civil fraud charges against former Met executives Robert Ness and Thomas Masters, who agreed to pay fines.

Dan Sandy, a business associate of Met and Trillum, also agreed to pay a $50,000 penalty.