Handout picture by Cuban website www.cubadebate.cu of former Cuban President Fidel Castro showing copies of the two volumes of his autobiographical memoir ‘Guerrillero del tiempo (Time Guerrilla)’, on February 3 at Convention Palace in Havana.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro presented two volumes of his memoir entitled “Time Guerrilla” in a ceremony that marked his first public appearance since last April, Cuban media reported.

The memoirs trace his life from infancy until 1958, when he succeeded in leading a revolution that turned Cuba into a communist country aligned with the Soviet Union.

Castro’s recollection of events is reported through conversations with journalist Katiuska Blanco.

“I have to seize the opportunity now because my memory is spent,” the 85-year-old Castro told guests at a presentation Friday at the Palace of Conventions in Havana.

The Cuban leader had not been seen in public since April 2011 when he attended the closing ceremony of a Communist Party congress.

Among the guests on Friday was Abel Prieto, Cuba’s cultural minister; Miguel Barnet, president of the Union of Writers and Artists; and Blanco, the book’s author.

“I’m willing to do everything possible to convey what I remember well,” Castro was quoted as saying in the official newspapers Granma, Young Rebel and on the website Cubadebate. “I’ve been expressing all the ideas I had and the feelings that I went through. I am aware of the importance of telling all this to pass it so that it can be useful.”

During the conversations with Blanco, which span 1,000 pages in the book, Castro said, “I prefer an old clock, old eyeglasses, old boots and in politics, everything new.”

Blanco, who also authored the first official biography of Castro and his family, presents his memoirs in the form of questions and answers.

The book is similar to “One Hundred Hours with Fidel,” a book of conversations between Castro and Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, published in late 2006, just after the Cuban leader turned over power to his brother, Raul, amid a health crisis.

Since then, Castro has dedicated himself to publishing a book that narrates his experiences during the Cuban revolution and writing columns in the media titled “Reflections.” The columns expound on his views on current events.

Castro gave copies of his two-volume memoirs to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff during her visit to Cuba this week, according to diplomatic sources in Brazil.

The memoirs are published by Editora Abril and illustrated with photographs and drawings by the Cuban painter Ernesto Rancano.

Castro spoke about international politics during his presentation at the Palace of Conventions.

He said he closely follows events in Venezuela under the government of his friend, Hugo Chavez.

“No one did more for the people of Venezuela and the Bolivarian Movement,” he said.

He also referred to the Chilean student protests demanding free and quality education under the guidance of their leader Camila Vallejo.

“We should support the ideas of the young Chilean in the sense of fighting for education available equally to all,” Castro said. “It shouldn’t be just general education and free, but we should also worry about what is taught,” he added.

Regarding the politics of Latin America and the Middle East, Castro said, “There is no longer room only for national interests. Instead, they should be framed under world interests.”

“Our duty is to fight until the last minute for our country, for our planet and for humanity.”

Castro also congratulated the families of five Cuban agents convicted of espionage in the United States. The Cuban government refers to them as “heroes” and “anti-terrorists” for their work in monitoring anti-Castro groups in Miami.

“You have to see what these men have endured,” he said.

A farmer is seen following her flock of sheep near a fenced-off canal that is part of China’s hugely ambitious South-North Water Diversion Project, in Yixian, in 2009, in northern China’s Hebei province.

A massive project to divert water from China’s south to its drought-prone north — which has seen hundreds of thousands of people relocated — will become partly operational next year, state media reported.

The South-North Water Diversion Project is one of the country’s largest infrastructure projects since the building of the Three Gorges Dam, which involved the relocation of more than one million people.

Sun Yifu, deputy water resources chief in the eastern province of Shandong — who is also involved in the programme — said his province’s part of the project would be completed at the end of the year, the Xinhua news agency said.

He added that “the entire project” would become operational in the first half of 2013, and start supplying water to arid parts of the north, the report said late Saturday.

China’s South-North Water Diversion project consists of three routes — the eastern, middle and western routes — and Sun was referring to the eastern portion of the project, or a 1,890-kilometre (1,170-mile) canal.

Construction on the 1,430-kilometre central route began in 2003 and will only be operational in 2014. The western section, meanwhile, has yet to see the light of day.

Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong is credited with coming up with the idea for the massive diversion program, which will feature a tunnel dug beneath the Yellow River — the second-largest in China.

But the project — which will cost an estimated 500 billion yuan ($79 billion) — was only approved in 2002.

Critics say it could be a huge waste of resources that risks creating new water shortages and sparking environmental disasters. They also point to the human cost of mass relocations to make way for the canals.

Yuan Zi (left) and Huan Huan, seen here in their quarantined enclosure at the Panda Research Base in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Two Chinese pandas left their breeding centre in southwestern China Sunday destined for a 10-year stay in France, in a loan sealed after years of top-level negotiations.

Huan Huan ("happy") and Yuan Zi ("chubby") left the centre in the city of Chengdu and were put on a cargo flight bound for the French zoo they will call home under an agreement reached between Paris and Beijing.

Hou Rong, head of the breeding centre, said the main issue for the pandas on their long journey was likely to be the same as that of their human companions on the "Panda Express", a Boeing 777 specially decorated with a panda motif.

"It is possible that they will suffer jetlag," the professor said.

Huan Huan and Yuan Zi are the first pandas sent to France since 1973, when Yen Yen — who went on to live until 2000 — was given to then president Georges Pompidou along with another panda, which died shortly after arriving.

The latest furry ambassadors, who have been specially selected for their breeding potential, are bound for the leading Beauval zoo in the Loire region of central France.

But the French public will have to wait until February 11 to get their first glimpse of the bears in their specially built 2.5 hectare (six acre) enclosure adorned with Chinese-style pagodas and marble lion statues.

A deal on the endangered animals, famous for their reluctance to breed, was to have been announced at the G20 summit in the French resort of Cannes last November, but had to be delayed due to the eurozone crisis.

China is famed for its "panda diplomacy", using the bears as diplomatic gifts to other countries. Just 1,600 remain in the wild in China, with some 300 others in captivity worldwide — mostly in China.

David Algranti, who was named a "pambassador" in 2010 and spent several weeks as the bears’ official guardian in Chengdu, was one of a handful of people given privileged access to the quarantined pandas.

"France is lucky to be getting these two, they are particularly lovable, and very good-looking," he said. "Huan Huan sticks out her tongue a lot and Yuan Zi loves to climb, he’s quite sporty."

A handout from the Italian Guardia de Finanza shows the Costa Concordia, after the cruise ship ran aground and keeled over off the Isola del Giglio.

Two South Korean honeymooners were rescued Sunday from a cruise ship that hit rocks and keeled over off the west coast of Italy, but three were confirmed dead with dozens still missing.

Two French passengers and one Peruvian crew member have been confirmed killed, apparently after jumping into the chilly Mediterranean waters after the Costa Concordia hit rocks late Friday and began to keel over.

"This is a risky operation," Cosimo Nicastro, a spokesman for the coast guard, told reporters at the scene. "The ship is in waters that are 30 meters (100 feet) deep but it could slowly slip into the sea and sink completely."

"We are talking about 50 or 60 people who are still missing" off the island of Giglio in Tuscany, he said.

Earlier, the governor of nearby Grosseto, Giuseppe Linardi, and port officials said 41 people were still missing.

Nicastro said some survivors may not have been counted properly but that others could have been trapped in their cabins or in other areas below deck.

Investigators arrested the ship’s captain on Saturday and were to begin analysing the "black box" recovered by rescuers, which logged all of the 291-metre long ship’s movements as well as conversations between personnel.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, told Italian news channel TGCOM that the ship hit a rock that was not on the charts and that he had tried to save as many people as possible.

First officer Ciro Ambrosio was also arrested, local prosecutors said.

Italian media said the two face possible charges of multiple homicide and abandoning the ship before all the passengers were rescued.

The captain "approached Giglio Island in a very awkward way, hit a rock that stuck into its left side, making (the boat) list and take on a huge amount of water in the space of two or three minutes," a prosecutor told reporters.

Island residents also said the ship was sailing far too close to Giglio and had hit an underwater rocky reef that was well known to the local population of the picturesque hilly outcrop, which has a population of just 800 people.

There was relief though early Sunday when a South Korean couple on their honeymoon, both aged 29, were rescued by firemen from a lower deck of the Costa Concordia where they had been trapped, Italian news agency ANSA said.

They had boarded the ship on their first-ever cruise at Civitavecchia, further south on the Italian coast.

The couple had been stranded two decks below rescuers on the half-submerged ship as the search for the dozens of missing out of more than 4,200 originally on board was continuing late into the night.

Rescue workers who had heard them calling for help took 90 minutes to extract them from their cabin.

The Korean couple were in good health and able to walk off the firemen’s boat onto Giglio, where an ambulance took them away for medical checks, ANSA said.

Rescuers said they plucked 100 people from the sea in the night between Friday and Saturday after some of the lifeboats on board failed to function or could not descend to the water from a ship that was already badly listing.

About 60 people who had not managed to escape in lifeboats were rescued from the vessel itself, including one passenger with a broken leg.

Some crew members familiar with the layout of the ship were helping divers negotiate their way around the Italian-built liner’s 1,500 cabins.

Survivors from around the world — many of them with bloodshot eyes and draped in woollen blankets in Giglio harbour — spoke of scenes "like the Titanic" on board and said they were not properly informed about the evacuation.

Some of the survivors were in evening wear as they had just been settling down to supper on board when the accident happened. There were also bar and restaurant staff in crimson blazers and kitchen staff in white smocks.

"We were lucky we were so close to the shore. Thank God. Everyone was very afraid," said Jose Rodriguez, a 43-year-old barman from Honduras, who was standing in line to receive food and clothing from emergency officials.

Officials said all the survivors had been taken off the island on Saturday to nearby Porto Santo Stefano and then on to other parts of Italy or back home.

The people on board included some 60 nationalities and some 52 were children under six. Nearly a third of the passengers were Italian, followed by Germans and French. There were also Americans, Russians and Japanese on board.

The Philippines said 300 Filipino crew members had been aboard the vessel.

The British and French ambassadors visited the scene of the accident, along with diplomatic officials from more than a dozen countries.

They privately expressed frustration over a lack of information about their citizens and on the handling of the ship’s evacuation.

At least 42 people were injured, including two seriously — a woman with a blow to the head and a man struck in the spine, medical sources said.

Most of those hospitalized had suffered broken limbs or had hypothermia.

The disaster happened just hours after the ship had left the port of Civitavecchia near Rome at the start of a Mediterranean cruise that was meant to take it to Savona in northwest Italy and then on to Marseille and Barcelona.

An executive with the Genoa-based company that owns the cruise ship insisted the vessel had not strayed off course.

"It is not correct to say that the boat was off its route," said Gianni Onorato, managing director of Costa Crociere.

The company is the biggest cruise operator in Europe, with a turnover of 2.9 billion euros ($3.7 billion) in 2010, according to its website.

Iran said on Saturday it had evidence Washington was behind the latest killing of one of its nuclear scientists, state television reported, at a time when tensions over the country’s nuclear program have escalated to their highest level ever.

In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, a magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in the capital. His driver was also killed.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton denied responsibility and Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel had no role in the attack, to the best of his knowledge.

"We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA," the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported. The Swiss embassy represents US interests in a country where Washington has no diplomatic ties.

The spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff, Massoud Jazayeri, said: "Our enemies, especially America , Britain and the Zionist regime (Israel), have to be held responsible for their actions."

Iran in the past has accused Israel of causing a series of spectacular and sometimes bloody mishaps to its nuclear program. Israeli officials do not comment on any involvement in those events, although some have publicly expressed satisfaction at the setbacks.

Feeling the heat from unprecedented new sanctions, Iran’s clerical establishment has brandished its sword by threatening to block the main Mid-East oil shipping route, starting to enrich uranium at an underground bunker and sentencing an Iranian-American citizen to death on spying charges.

State TV said a "letter of condemnation" had also been sent to Britain, saying the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists began after the head of Britain’s MI6 spy service announced intelligence operations against states seeking nuclear weapons.

The West says Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at building a bomb. Tehran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear power.

Tehran has urged the UN Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the latest killing.

After years of international sanctions that had little impact on Iran, US President Barack Obama signed new measures on New Year’s Eve that, if fully implemented, would make it impossible for most countries to pay for Iranian oil.

Washington is requiring that countries gradually reduce their purchases of Iranian oil in order to receive temporary waivers from the sanctions.

The European Union is expected to unveil similar measures next week, and announce a gradual oil embargo among its member states, who collectively buy about a fifth of Iran’s exports.

The combined measures mean Iran may fail to sell all of the 2.6 million barrels a day of exports it relies on to feed its 74 million people. Even if it finds buyers, it will have to offer steep discounts, cutting into its desperately-needed revenue.

On Tuesday shipping sources told Reuters Iran was storing an increasing supply of oil at sea – as much as 8 million barrels – and was likely to store more as it struggles to sell it.

Iran denies it is having trouble: "There has been no disruption in Iran’s crude exports through the Persian Gulf … We have not stored oil in the Gulf because of sanctions as some foreign media reported," oil official Pirouz Mousavi told the semi-official Mehr news agency on Friday.

The sanctions are causing real hardship on the streets, where prices for basic imported goods are soaring, the rial currency has plummeted and Iranians have been flocking to sell rials to buy dollars to protect their savings.

The pain comes less than two months before a parliamentary election, Iran’s first since a presidential vote in 2009 that was followed by eight months of street demonstrations.

Iran’s authorities successfully put down that revolt by force, but since then the "Arab Spring" has shown the vulnerability of authoritarian governments in the region to protests fueled by anger over economic difficulty.

Clash threat

Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz leading to the Gulf if sanctions are imposed on its oil exports, and has threatened to take unspecified action if Washington sails an aircraft carrier through the strait, an international waterway.

Military experts say Tehran can do little to fight the massive US-led fleet that guards the strait, but the threats raise the chance of a miscalculation that could lead to a military clash and a global oil crisis.

The Pentagon said on Friday that small Iranian boats had approached close to US vessels in the strait last week, although it said it did not believe there was "hostile intent."

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute. Iran says it would retaliate if attacked.

The tension has caused spikes in global oil prices in recent weeks, although prices eased at the close of last week’s trading on the prospect of reduced demand in economically stricken European countries. Brent crude fell 82 cents to settle at $110.44 a barrel on Friday.

The chances for an imminent easing of tension look even more remote as the nuclear deadlock continues because of Iran’s refusal to halt the sensitive nuclear work.

Last week Iran began enriching uranium underground – the most controversial part of its nuclear program – at a bunker deep below a mountain near the Shi’ite holy city of Qom.

Nuclear talks with major powers collapsed a year ago. Iran says it wants the talks to resume, but the West says there is no point unless it is willing to discuss a halt to uranium enrichment, which can be used to make material for a bomb.

Private equity firm TPG Capital is willing to invest about $1 billion in Japan’s Olympus Corp in a joint deal with Sony Corp or another suitor circling the scandal-hit firm, a person familiar with TPG’s thinking said.

TPG has informed executives at Sony, Canon Inc, Fujifilm Holdings and Panasonic Corp of its interest in providing capital and expertise to help revive the maker of medical equipment and cameras, the person said.

Olympus has been seeking a friendly investor to make a minority investment and help its business recover from a $1.7 billion accounting scandal that has crushed its stock price and left a big dent in its balance sheet.

Electronics firms such as Sony, Canon and Panasonic are keen on Olympus’ diagnostic endoscope business as part of their strategies to expand into healthcare, while Fujifilm is already in the profitable endoscope market, banking sources have said.

So far, TPG has not received any indication from these strategic suitors that they would be willing to work with the private equity firm on a transaction, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

But TPG believes it could be an effective partner by putting up capital, offering its experience in management, restructuring and the healthcare field, and by taking over parts of the company the strategic investor does not want, the person said.

A TPG spokesman declined to comment.

“My impression is that the chance of private equity getting involved in Olympus is 50-50,” said Tetsuro Ii, chief executive of Commons Asset Management.

“The strategic partner would need to eventually buy out the fund at a higher price. But the fact is Olympus has made a lot of acquisitions to date, much of which will need to be disposed of or restructured. It probably makes more sense to work with a value-up fund to get that done.”

The list of potential suitors is long and was thought to include Samsung Electronics, though the South Korean technology giant ruled out on Friday any chance of an equity investment in the firm.

Sony, Canon, Fujifilm and Panasonic are seen as strong candidates to invest in and form an alliance with Olympus, attracted by its medical equipment business, the company’s crown jewel boasting operating profit margins of about 20 percent.

Canon said it was not considering an alliance with Olympus. Panasonic declined to comment. Fujifilm said it had not been contacted by TPG, while Sony said it had no comment.

Nearly all of Olympus’ profits are generated from its dominant 70 percent share of the global market for flexible diagnostic endoscopes. The steady cash flow from that business has allowed it to prop up its digital camera business, which is on course to lose money for a second straight year.

Messy deal

TPG would consider taking over the other less desirable parts of the firm to facilitate a deal. This could include the digital camera operation, which is in need of a major overhaul, including job cuts, the person said.

TPG is one of the world’s largest private equity firms, with about $48 billion of assets under management. It has considerable experience in healthcare, including a leading role in the $4 billion buyout of data provider IMS Health in 2009.

It is also one of several parties interested in bidding for AMR Corp, the bankrupt parent of American Airlines, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Olympus’ medical business appears to have weathered the scandal, but its stock is down 40 percent since the fraud was brought to light in mid-October and the situation remains fluid, adding to the difficulty in getting a deal done.

Samsung Electronics Chief Executive Choi Gee-sung dismissed suggestions his firm, a global leader in smartphones, televisions and memory chips, would want to buy Olympus’ assets or at least invest as an equity partner in the business.

“We’re not interested in what others are already doing very well. Samsung will do what we can do better,” Choi told Reuters on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

An executive at parent Samsung Group, however, said Samsung Electronics was interested in a more modest, non-equity alliance, though he declined to give details.

“We are not that interested in Olympus … Olympus is in a very difficult situation. It may want more than just an alliance or cooperation,” the executive said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Any major foreign investment in Olympus could run into opposition in Japan, where the firm’s endoscope technology is seen as strategic, in part because of the country’s high incidence of stomach cancer.

Medical endoscopes are used to peer inside patients to help diagnose cancer, ulcers and other conditions. Olympus endoscope technology also has strategic industrial applications, such as looking inside dangerously radioactive parts of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The Japanese government can halt an investment of 10 percent or more in a listed firm, or 1 percent or more in an unlisted company, if foreign ownership would affect national security, a regulation some say might be applied to optical technology.

An analyst in Hong Kong said optical technology was potentially of interest to Samsung Electronics.

“Optical technology is one of the areas where it has not caught up with Japan,” said Hwang Min-seong, a technology analyst at Samsung Securities.

Olympus remains a thorny takeover target for potential bidders because the multinational remains under investigation by police, prosecutors and regulators at home as well as by law-enforcement agencies in the United States and Britain.

Its disgraced senior management and board is also in disarray, with shareholders not expected to vote in a new board, including chairman and chief executive, until March or April when Olympus has said it will convene an extraordinary meeting.

Olympus’ listing status is also under a cloud, though risks of it being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange appear to be fading with public broadcaster NHK reporting on Friday that the exchange was set to decide to keep Olympus on its boards.

The exchange is likely to hold an extraordinary executive meeting to decide Olympus’ fate as early as January 20, NHK added. The exchange said in a statement that nothing had been decided.

Olympus shares closed down 2.7 percent at 1,236 yen, valuing the company at around $4.4 billion. The stock’s fall was due to investors keen to close out positions ahead of the weekend and lock in gains earlier in the week on growing expectations that it would keep its listing, a trader at a Japanese broker said.

 
People are seen mingling in front of a display of LG Electronics televisions during the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, where LG unveiled their 55-inch OLED TV, said to be the world’s largest. The TV set was later crowned ‘best gadget’ of the CES.

A razor-thin television from LG Electronics was crowned best gadget of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and Microsoft was a big winner in its final appearance at the annual trade event.

The 55-inch (140-centimeter) TV set set from the South Korean electronics giant is just 0.16 inches (four millimeters) thick and uses OLED, or organic light-emitting diode, display technology.

OLED TVs do not require backlighting and feature better color contrast than standard flat-screen LEDs and LG and another South Korean titan, Samsung, both wowed the crowds at CES in Las Vegas with 55-inch models.

A panel of experts from technology news site CNET awarded the LG 55EM9800 the title of “Best TV” at CES but also named it “Best of Show” among the thousands of new products on display at the four-day event.

CNET said it gave the nod to the LG TV over the Samsung model in part because it has an actual shipping date — the third quarter of the year.

When the super-set does finally hit the market it won’t be for just anyone — the 55-inch LG OLED TV is expected to cost several thousand dollars.

Microsoft, which has announced that this year’s CES will be its last, saw products powered by its Windows software scoop up a couple of awards.

The Lumia 900 touchscreen from Finland’s Nokia was named best cellphone and the Envy 14 Spectre laptop from Hewlett-Packard was tapped as the best computer.

The Lumia 900, which runs on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system, is seen as Nokia’s bid to break into a US smartphone market dominated by Apple’s iPhone and handsets powered by Google’s Android software.

The Windows-powered HP Envy 14 Spectre is what is known as an “ultrabook,” a slim, lightweight laptop in a category pioneered by Apple’s MacBook Air.

The HP Envy 14 Spectre is to go on sale in February for $1,399. Pricing and availability of the Lumia 900 have not been released.

BlueStacks for Windows, a program which will ship on some upcoming Windows 8 computers, was named best software application. BlueStacks provides access to the hundreds of thousands of Android applications.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer or his predecessor, Bill Gates, have delivered the opening keynote address at CES for the past 15 years and the US software giant has traditionally had one of the largest booths on the exhibition floor.

But Microsoft announced last month that it is bowing out of the show, which attracted more than 3,100 exhibitors this year, because the January timing does not coincide with its product development calendar.

An Android-powered tablet computer from Taiwan’s Asus, the Asus Memo 370T, was named best tablet at a show which featured dozens of new rivals to Apple’s iPad.

The Asus Memo 370T, which has a seven-inch (17.8-cm) screen, is powered by the latest version of Android software for tablets and costs $250, half the price of the cheapest iPad.

Other CES winners were the mirrorless Fujifilm X-Pro 1, which was named best camera, and the MakerBot Replicator, which snatched the title of “Best Emerging Tech Product.”

The MakerBot Replicator is what is known as a 3D printer and can make objects as large as a loaf of bread by working off a blueprint fed into the machine.

While LG and the other winners were expected to be celebrating their awards in Las Vegas on Thursday night they should be mindful that recognition at CES is no guarantee of success in the marketplace.

Last year’s winner of the “Best in Show” title was the “Xoom” tablet computer from Motorola but it has failed to make any headway against the iPad.

The 2009 CES winner was a smartphone from Palm, the Pre.

Sales of the Pre failed to live up to expectations and the company was bought the next year by HP, which has since stopped making cellphones using Palm’s webOS mobile operating system.

An Iranian ground-to-sea missile is launched on the last day of navy war games near the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran on January 2. Iran’s military has warned one of the US navy’s biggest aircraft carriers to keep away from the Gulf, in an escalating showdown over Tehran’s nuclear drive.

Iran’s military on Tuesday warned one of the US navy’s biggest aircraft carriers not to return to the Gulf, in an escalating showdown over Tehran’s nuclear drive that could pitch into armed confrontation.

“We advise and insist that this warship not return to its former base in the Persian Gulf,” said Brigadier General Ataollah Salehi, Iran’s armed forces chief.

“We don’t have the intention of repeating our warning, and we warn only once,” he was quoted as saying by the armed forces’ official website.

The US carrier would face the “full force” of the Iranian navy if it returns, a navy spokesman, Commodore Mahmoud Mousavi, told Iran’s Arabic television service Al-Alam.

The ominous message came just after Iran completed 10 days of naval manoeuvres at the entrance to the Gulf to show it could close the strategic oil shipping channel in the Strait of Hormuz if it felt threatened.

In the climax of the war games on Monday, Iran test-fired three missiles — including a new cruise missile — designed to sink warships.

The aircraft carrier Salehi was referring to is the USS John C. Stennis, one of the US navy’s biggest warships. The massive, nuclear-powered vessel transports up to 90 fighter jets and helicopters and is usually escorted by around five destroyers. It is close to finishing its seven-month deployment at sea.

The carrier last week passed through the Strait of Hormuz heading east across the Gulf of Oman and through the zone where the Iranian navy was holding its maneuvers. The US Defense Department called its passage “routine”.

The potential for an Iran-US conflict sent a shiver through oil markets Tuesday, pushing oil prices up around $2 a barrel.

There was no sign of a let-up in the tensions.

At the weekend, US President Barack Obama signed into law new sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank, which processes most of the Islamic republic’s oil export sales.

The European Union, which is mulling an embargo on Iranian oil, is expected to announce further sanctions of its own at the end of January.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said he was convinced Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, and he wanted to see “stricter sanctions” applied on Iran.

The Western sanctions add to four sets of UN sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear activities.

The United States and many Western nations believe Iran is developing an atomic arsenal.

Tehran denies that, saying its nuclear program is exclusively for energy production and medical isotopes.

In a statement to underline progress it has made, Iran’s atomic energy organization said on Sunday its scientists had made the country’s first nuclear fuel rod from indigenous uranium.

Iran’s armed forces chief-of-staff, General Hassan Firouzabadi, added to the defiance by saying Tuesday that the Revolutionary Guards, an elite military force apart from the regular defense services, would soon hold its own naval maneuvers in the Gulf.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters that “the foreign forces” present in the Gulf — meaning the US Navy — “are against the security of the region.”

He said Iran’s war games underlined his country’s commitment to ensuring “stability and security in the region.”

Despite the increasingly bellicose stand Iran’s military was taking, Tehran suggested it was keeping the door open to negotiating with world powers over its nuclear program.

Iran was waiting for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to set a date and venue for a meeting to discuss resuming talks that have been stalled for nearly a year, Mehmanparast said.

But a spokesman for Ashton shot back immediately that Iran “must first respond” to an October letter from Ashton sent proposing renewed talks, “and then we’ll take it from there.”

The negotiations were being held with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus non-permanent member Germany.

International pressure has already hit Iran’s economy by scaring off foreign investors.

Iran’s currency, the rial, went into a nosedive on Monday, losing 12 percent, after Obama put the new US measures into effect.

It recovered on Tuesday when Iran pumped foreign exchange into the market, according to Commerce Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari, quoted by the IRNA news agency.

Mehmanparast said the volatility “definitely has nothing to with sanctions.”

“What’s happening with the exchange market has its roots elsewhere,” such as domestic movements of capital, he said.

France vowed on Tuesday to investigate failures to detect faults with the French-made breast implants at the centre of a global health scare, as a senior lawmaker urged a full parliamentary probe.

Meanwhile a supplier to the manufacturer at the heart of the scandal, Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), confirmed it had sold the firm the non-standard, industrial-grade silicone believed to have been used in the implants.

A growing litany of accusations against the now-defunct PIP has triggered a worldwide scare with several countries, including France, advising thousands of women to have its implants removed.

Between 300,000 and 400,000 women in 65 countries from Europe to Latin America are believed to have implants made with sub-standard gel PIP used to cut its costs.

“All the elements now suggest that the gel (used in PIP’s implants) was truly contaminated,” French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand told France 2 television.

“How was this not detected by checks?” he asked. “I want to know everything… I have asked for investigations at the Directorate General of Health and (health safety agency) AFSSAPS to know what happened, how these checks were done.”

Bertrand said that he would in the next few days be contacting his counterparts around Europe to discuss the scandal.

Chantal Jouanno, a senator with the ruling UMP party and former sports minister, said she had made a formal request for a parliamentary investigation to be held “without delay” into the scandal.

“The end of 2011 was marked by the revelations of the scandal around PIP breast implants… (which) established the risks of rupture and inflammation from these implants,” she said in a statement.

“This is a problem of public safety which the nation’s representatives must seize upon,” Jouanno said.

Based in the south of France, PIP was shut down and its products banned in 2010 after it was revealed to have been using industrial-grade silicone gel that caused abnormally high rupture rates.

Fears over its implants spread globally last month after French health authorities advised 30,000 women to have their PIP implants removed because of the increased risk of rupture.

Officials have also said that cancer, including 16 cases of breast cancer, has been detected in 20 French women with the implants but have insisted there is no proven link with the disease.

Prosecutors in Marseille, near PIP’s laboratory at Seyne-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean, have received more than 2,500 complaints from French women who received the implants and are pursuing a criminal investigation.

The firm’s 72-year-old founder, Jean-Claude Mas, has admitted to using non-standard silicone gel in the implants but denied any health risks.

A French supplier of PIP on Tuesday confirmed selling silicone to the firm that was meant only for industrial uses.

“All the specifications of the product that was ordered from us corresponded to industrial material,” Pierre Gaches, the CEO of Toulouse-based Gaches Chimie, told AFP.

He said the company had supplied PIP with industrial-grade silicone since the early 2000s but that PIP “never gave us any information on how it planned to use” the material.

On Monday France’s RTL radio revealed that an exact breakdown of the materials used in the implants showed that they also contained additives used in the oil and rubber industries.

Authorities in many countries have advised women to consult their doctors over the implants. Some nations, including Bolivia and Venezuela, have said that in some cases the implants will be removed for free.

France is also paying to have the implants removed among French women, at an estimated cost of up to 60 million euros ($78 million), and has said it will pursue PIP in the courts for damages.

Vladimir Putin still has the support of a majority of Russians, his spokesman said on Sunday after a mass protest challenged the premier’s authority two months before he stands in presidential polls.

Organisers said 120,000 people attended the rally in central Moscow Saturday where protesters chanted slogans against Prime Minister Putin and called for the annulment of disputed December parliamentary elections won by his party.

Police put the numbers at 29,000 but AFP correspondents said the turnout was clearly bigger and more anti-Putin in tone than the first rally two weeks ago which smashed the taboo in Russia against mass opposition protests.

"As a politician and a presidential candidate, Putin still has the support of a majority. And we should treat the opinion of a majority with respect," his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP.

He added that Putin was "beyond competition" as a candidate in March 4, 2012 presidential polls, where the Russian strongman plans to stand for a third Kremlin term after his four-year stint as prime minister.

Peskov acknowledged the protest had taken place and said the demonstrators’ position was to be treated with respect. "Those people who came out onto the streets — they are a very important part of society. But they are a minority."

The last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had late Saturday dramatically called on Putin to quit, just as he had done on December 25, 1991 when the USSR collapsed exactly two decades ago.

The protest movement — which brings together a charismatic anti-corruption blogger, a detective story writer, musicians and a former finance minister — does not so far have a clear leader but is gaining momentum.

"This is not an outburst which will die down. This is not about the protests but about the mood," Yevgeny Gontmakher, head of the Centre for Social Policies at the Moscow-based Economics Institute, told AFP.

"There is a danger of a revolution. Authorities are making concessions but are not keeping up with the development of the events."

The leaders have not said when the next protest will take place and one of the most prominent opposition figures, politician Vladimir Ryzhkov, admitted that there were "several points of view" within the movement on the timing.

Ryzhkov told Moscow Echo radio he would prefer the next rally to take place in March to coincide with the presidential polls but he said some of his colleagues wanted a rally at the end of January.

The opposition set up a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/moscow.comes.back) to coordinate and debate the timing of future protests.

Another leading figure, 35-year-old blogger Alexei Navalny, provocatively vowed on Saturday that one million people would attend the next anti-Putin rally.

The mass protests were triggered by widespread claim of wholesale violations in this month’s parliamentary polls which handed a reduced majority to Putin’s ruling United Russia party.

Protesters called for the annulment of the ballot, sacking of the Central Election Commission chief and a re-run of elections.

Hoping to ride out a wave of protests, Putin ignored those demands and promised instead a return to the direct election of regional governors and a simplified procedure to register political parties.

In defiance of the protests, the newly-elected lower house of parliament convened for its first session earlier this week.

Most Russians lost their taste for street politics in the chaotic 90s and the scale of the current protests is a major boon for the fragmented opposition which had for years struggled to encourage Russians to take to the streets.

But incensed by his claims that opposition supporters were in the pay of the US State Department and insults comparing them to an anti-AIDS campaign, protesters are now taking their anger out directly at Putin.