The UN Nuclear Watchdog says that Iran has almost stopped the expansion of its nuclear enrichment capacity over the past three months. Bethany Bell has the details. “Iran's nuclear work has slow down considerably according to the IAEA report. It says that since August Iran has installed only four of the centrifuge machines which enrich uranium compared to over 1,800 earlier in the summer. The report also says that Iran’s stockpile of more highly enriched uranium has risen only slightly and remains below the 250 kilos needed for a bomb. Tehran says its nuclear work is clearly peaceful.”
A judge in the United States has rejected a legal attempt by authors to stop Google scanning millions of books and making extracts of them available online. The technology firm was sued for breach of copyright in 2005 over its project to create a massive digital library. The judge in New York ruled that the Google Books scheme provided significant public benefits while taking into account authors' rights.
The former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney has made a personal appeal to President Putin to release Greenpeace activists imprisoned in Russia. The 28 activists and two journalists are awaiting trial for hooliganism. Sir Paul quotes a line from the Beatle song Back in the USSR, about it being good to be back home, and asks Mr. Putin to make that true for the prisoners. In 2003, Vladimir Putin gave the rock star a personal tour of the Kremlin.