Canada, Sweden and Eritrea are pressuring Ethiopia to reveal details regarding the foreign nationals it has allegedly detained in secret prisons in collaboration with the FBI and CIA. The existence of prisons in which US government agencies have interrogated individuals suspected of having ties to al Qaeda was disclosed on Tuesday after Human Rights Watch reports claimed that the US, Kenya, and Ethiopia were cooperating with the transitional government of Somalia to detain refugees from the recent conflict there.

Among those believed to be imprisoned in Ethiopia are Canadian citizen Bashir Makhtal, three Eritrean citizens who were turned over to Somalia after their arrest by Kenyan authorities in January, and two Swedish citizens. Nationals of France, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Morocco and Tunisia are also thought to be detained there. Investigations of the US rendition program have so far focused primarily on Europe, where reports revealed that sixteen EU member states were involved at some level in the operation of CIA secret prisons and rendition flights.

Visiting commander of U.S. Central Command Admiral William J. Fallon on Thursday denied an attack on Iran soon, saying that the Iranian issue should be solved through diplomatic channels.

Fallon made the denial to reporters after his meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's Red Sea resort Sharmel-Sheikh, the official MENA news agency reported here.

Asked whether the United States would attack Iran soon, especially as Washington beefed up military presence in the Gulf region recently, the top U.S. officer gave a negative answer.

"Washington already had its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan," he explained.

Talking on the Iranian nuclear issue, Fallon told the reporters that Iran should be convinced through diplomatic channels that seeking to possess nuclear weapons is not a good idea.

He, meanwhile, expressed that the United States in general does not encourage nuclear proliferation in the Middle East region and is keen on maintaining the peace and security of the region.

Enhanced military nuclear capabilities of countries in the region would be counterproductive and even unwarranted, he said, while being asked about the danger posed by Israel's nuclear weapons to regional security and stability in light of the U.S. hardline stance towards the Iranian nuclear program.

The U.S. stance towards Tehran is as clear and firm as that of UN member states, Fallon said, accusing Iran of pursuing a program leading to producing nuclear weapons, which were "Gulf leaders' concerns about Iran's intentions".

Tehran has denied the allegation.

Fallon's visit to Egypt is part of his first regional tour since he assumed post last month succeeding General John P. Abizaid.

He has already visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, where he met with the countries' leaders and top officials to listen to their views on regional issues and discussed bilateral cooperation with them.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, the second highest ranking U.S. diplomat, will travel to Libya.

According to the White House, Negroponte will focus on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan as well as build stronger ties with the former "Axis of Evil" leader Moammar Gadhafi.

The trip, which includes stops in Chad, Mauritania and Sudan, will be the first time such a senior member of the State Department visited Libya in over 50 years.

While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been invited to meet with Libyan leaders, ongoing commitments in the Middle East and Washington have so-far kept such a summit from being scheduled.

"After the press conference, they will be sent to the airport to take a flight to their own country," he added.

But Iran's official IRNA news agency later quoted "an informed source" as saying that the freed British naval personnel will leave Tehran on a flight Thursday morning.

Shortly after the press conference, Ahmadinejad participated in a "ceremony" for the 15 British sailors' release in his presidential compound, Iran's state television reported.

The television's footage showed Ahmadinejad was shaking hands with the British naval personnel and talking to them.

The Iranian forces seized the 15 British naval personnel on March 23 for "incursion" into its territorial waters. But Britain said its soldiers were in Iraqi territorial waters.

At the press conference on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad said that no deal had been made with Britain on the issue and the release of the British naval personnel is "a gift" from the Iranian people.

Nevertheless, the British government had promised in a letter saying that it would not repeat the incident again, Ahmadinejad said.

Iran's state television reported that the 15 British sailors and marines were watching the live broadcast and applauded when they heard the announcement of their release.

Earlier at the same press conference, Ahmadinejad awarded a medal to the commander who led the mission to arrest "trespassers."

"Here I want to thank with a medal of third-rank bravery to the commander of the forces who defended Iran's borders and arrested the trespassers," Ahmadinejad told the reporters.

The Iranian president presented the medal to Abulghasem Amanghah, Islamic Revolutionary Guards naval commander.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed the release of the15 sailors and marines who had been held in Iran for nearly two weeks, saying that Britain respects Iran's "proud and dignified history."

"I'm glad that our 15 service personnel have been released and I know their release will come as a relief not just to them but to their families that have endured such stress and anxiety," he said in a statement.

The 13-day crisis came to an end Wednesday after both Iran and Britain had softened their rhetoric and stepped up contacts over the recent days.

Blair said on Tuesday that the next two days would be "fairly critical" in the bid to secure the release of the 15 captured British sailors.

"The next 48 hours will be fairly critical," Blair told the Real Radio based in Glasgow, southwest Scotland.

On Tuesday, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani told Iranian state television that Britain had started talks with Tehran on resolving the standoff over the capture of 15 British sailors.

It is "only at the beginning," he said. "Things can change and we could go towards an end of this issue if they continue on this path."

Larijani on Monday said Iran's priority was to resolve the problem through proper diplomatic channels, and "there's no need to have a trial on the detained sailors."

China will not follow the U.S. energy consumption model because energy resources are limited, said Xu Dingming, vice director of the Office of the National Energy Leading Group.

Xu made the remark at an MIT Energy Forum in Shanghai on Tuesday. He said if Chinese people consumed energy like their U.S. counterparts, China would need 4.5 billion tons of oil per year. However, the annual global oil supply is just four billion tons with only 1.6 billion tons in commercial circulation.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Chinese citizens owned nearly 30 million private cars at the end of last year.

With annual oil consumption of two tons per vehicle and a 20 percent growth in car numbers per year, the transportation sector could become a large energy consumer in the future, warned the official.

Xu pointed out that westerners account for only 15 percent of the world's population but used the lion's share of the world's energy to power their industrial processes.

Reproducible energies are strongly recommended by experts and conservationists. China plans to raise the proportion of reproducible energies in its total energy consumption to 16 percent by 2020.

Ukraine's parliament and government have vowed to defy the president's order to dissolve the legislature and hold elections on May 27.

The decree was announced on Monday after a months-long power struggle following the March 2006 parliamentary elections that brought Yanukovych to power at the head of a leftist coalition.

Lawmakers from Yanukovich's coalition in parliament have appealed for a ruling by the constitutional court on the legitimacy of the president's order, the Interfax news agency reported.

But pressure from the two sides has prompted the Constitutional Court's chief judge to tender his resignation, which was not accepted by the other judges.

As the power struggle in Ukraine continued, the European Union, Russia and the United States also voiced their concern, calling for a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

He later threatened to force an early presidential election if the president does not rescind the order dissolving parliament.

About 2,000 supporters of the Ukrainian prime minister streamed into the Ukrainian capital Tuesday to protest the president's order to dissolve parliament and call early elections.

Yanukovich's supporters expanded a tent camp outside the parliament while the president's supporters announced plans to setup a stage in Independence Square.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signed the decree Monday and called a parliamentary election to take place on May 27.

The decree went into effect when it was published in the country's official gazette, though Yanukovich had urged the president to hold back from publishing the decree amid fears of deepening the country's ongoing political strife.

Lawmakers from Yanukovich's parliamentary coalition have appealed for a ruling by the constitutional court on the legitimacy of the president's order, the Interfax news agency reported.

The president and the prime minister were to hold discussions on the crisis on Tuesday afternoon.