AC Milan want longer Beckham loan

Beckham has scored two goals in nine Serie A game

AC Milan hope to extend David Beckham's loan from Los Angeles Galaxy until June, before signing the England midfielder permanently next year.

Beckham, 33, is currently scheduled to return to Galaxy on 9 March.

"Negotiations are getting more intense," said the Italian club's vice-president Adriano Galliani.

"I hope to arrange for him to stay here at least until 30 June on loan. Then he could return to Los Angeles and come back in January."

Beckham, who signed a five-year deal with the Galaxy in January 2007, moved to Milan in January to stay fit during the Major League Soccer off-season and so maintain his bid for an England place.

Milan have been impressed with the former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder, however, and are keen to make the move permanent.

"It's a complicated path, as we have always known, but I'm trying," Galliani added on the Serie A side's TV channel.

Galaxy supremo Tim Leiweke last week described Milan's recent offer for the player as "ridiculous".

Beckham has scored two goals in nine Serie A games during his time with Milan.

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Zimbabwe activist freed on bail

Ms Mukoko was accused of plotting to overthrow the government

Prominent Zimbabwean human rights activist Jestina Mukoko has been freed after three months in custody.

But Zimbabwean journalist Brian Hungwe told the BBC she remains in hospital, where she had been under police guard.

Ms Mukoko was accused of attempting to recruit people for military training to try to overthrow Robert Mugabe.

New Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had said he would not join a unity government unless Ms Mukoko and other activists were freed from jail.

Ms Mukoko's lawyer said she had been ordered to pay $600 in bail, surrender her passport and hand over the deeds to her house as surety, reports the AFP news agency.

"It's good she has been released, but she is still restricted," said Beatrice Mtetwa.

Ms Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, was allegedly seized from her house outside Harare on 3 December by 15 armed men.

Her whereabouts were unknown for three weeks, during which members of lawyers groups staged protests against her abduction.

The authorities then confirmed that she had been detained by the security forces.

Following a previous court appearance, a judge ordered that she receive medical treatment after she said she had been tortured.

Mr Tsvangirai was criticised by some of his supporters for joining the power-sharing government before Ms Mukoko and about 30 other detainees had been freed.

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Iran's uranium 'enough for bomb'

Iran's Bushehr plant may begin operations this ye

Iran has enough nuclear material to build a bomb, the United States' most senior military commander has said.

"We think they do, quite frankly," Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN.

"And Iran having a nuclear weapon, I've believed for a long time, is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world," he said.

Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, but the West suspects it is seeking nuclear weapons.

'One bomb' possible

A report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) two weeks ago said Tehran had built up a stockpile of fissile nuclear material.

This raised concerns in the West that Iran might have understated by one-third how much uranium it has enriched.

The IAEA report showed a major increase in Iran's reported stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) since November to 1,010 kg.

Some physicists believe this stockpile is enough to be converted into enough highly enriched uranium to build one bomb.

The amount "is sufficient for a nuclear weapons breakout capability", David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, told AFP news agency.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has adopted a more cautious approach.

"I think that there has been a continuing focus on how do you get the Iranians to walk away from a nuclear weapons programme? They're not close to a stockpile. They're not close to a weapon at this point," he told NBC on Sunday.

President Barack Obama has stated he wants to engage in diplomacy with Tehran to ensure it does not build nuclear weapons, and has described the country's nuclear programme as an "urgent problem" the international community must confront.

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