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LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY “They were driven by revenge and were acting like wild animals.” Aziza Abdirasulova, a human-rights worker in Kyrgzstan, saying revenge spurred Kyrgyz soldiers’ assault on an ethnic Uzbek village Article, this page

Iran bans 2 U.N. nuclear inspectors

TEHRAN, Iran - Tehran said Monday that it had banned two U.N. nuclear inspectors from entering the country because they had leaked “false” information about Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report in question stated that in January Iran announced it had conducted certain experiments to purify uranium, which could theoretically be used to produce a nuclear warhead. Iran then denied the experiments had taken place a few months later.

When the inspectors in May visited the Jaber Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Research Laboratory in Tehran, where the purported high temperature pyroprocessing experiments were conducted, they said the equipment involved had been removed.

The Associated Press reported the U.N. agency’s concerns in May, citing unnamed diplomats.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi said on state TV that the International Atomic Energy Agency had been informed of the decision to ban the inspectors, whom he did not identify. He also said Iran would honor its international commitments to the agency and agency inspectors would still be able to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Turkish troops corner rebel Kurds

ANKARA, Turkey - Elite commando units rappelled down from helicopters, and mechanized infantry units blocked escape routes of Kurdish rebels in a major operation along the Iraqi border on Monday. Turkey’s military chief did not rule out a crossborder offensive against rebel hide-outs in northern Iraq.

“It is our duty to find and eliminate terrorists wherever they are,” Gen. Ilker Basbug, head of the military, said in response to a question about the possibility of a major incursion. He said the military has been using drones, bought from Israel, over northern Iraq to monitor rebel positions over the past 10 days.

On the Turkish side of the border, the troops closed in on a group of rebels in a major offensive on the slopes of Kupeli and Cirav mountains in Sirnak province, bordering Iraq, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.

The Kurdish rebels, meanwhile, attacked a military unit in the nearby province of Diyarbakir, Anatolia said. One soldier and four rebels were killed in the ensuing fighting, according to the news agency.

Cameroon finds Australians’ plane

YAOUNDE, Cameroon - Search teams on Monday found the wreckage of a small plane that disappeared over the weekend carrying 11 people, including top executives of an Australian mining company, a spokesman for Cameroon’s government said. No survivors were found.

Spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary said the missing plane was discovered Monday afternoon in dense jungle inside Republic of Congo.

The aircraft, chartered by Australian company Sundance Resources Ltd., disappeared Saturday half an hour after it left Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, en route for Yangadou in Republic of Congo to visit an iron ore mining site, Cameroon’s government said. It said 11 people had been aboard, including six Australians, two French, an American and two Britons.