Briefly

Los Angeles

Attorney asks authorities to take Jackson’s children

An attorney who has tangled with Michael Jackson called Friday for child welfare authorities to temporarily remove the pop star’s three children from his custody because of new child molestation allegations.

Gloria Allred’s demand came as quiet descended on Santa Barbara following Jackson’s media-saturated surrender Thursday.

An arrest warrant alleges Jackson committed lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14. The Santa Barbara district attorney has said he does not plan to file charges until after Thanksgiving.

After posting $3 million bail Thursday, Jackson returned to a Las Vegas-area hotel-casino, but his whereabouts Friday were unclear.

New York

Consortium suspends work on two N. Korea reactors

The United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union decided Friday to suspend construction of two nuclear reactors in North Korea, which is suspected of secretly developing atomic weapons.

The four are members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization executive board, which had been building the light-water reactors under a 1994 deal between the United States and North Korea. The reactors were meant to come online in 2007.

The suspension will be for one year, the board said in a statement from its New York headquarters, announcing a decision reached earlier this month.

Austria

U.S. official pans report on Iranian nuclear program

The United States voiced unprecedented criticism of the U.N. atomic agency chief Friday, suggesting he glossed over Iranian deceptions about its nuclear program, even as diplomats in Washington hinted at a compromise on whether the Iranian issue should be referred to the U.N. Security Council.

U.S. envoy Kenneth Brill attacked as “questionable” a report from International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei. That report said the agency had found “no evidence” of an Iranian nuclear program.

Washington, D.C.

University security lax for bioterrorism agents

Materials that could be used for bioterrorism often are kept in insecure areas and aren’t well-monitored by university research labs funded by the Agriculture Department, federal inspectors say.

Trying to reduce post-Sept. 11 opportunities for terrorist attacks, the department’s inspector general found an alarming potential that biological agents, chemicals and radioactive materials could be readily obtained from college laboratories that receive some money from the department.

The inspector general’s office, after evaluating 104 labs at 10 universities and a private institution during the summer of 2002, urged the federal government to take a closer look at the dangers and issue a set of standards governing security of hazardous materials. The report did not name the labs for security’s sake.