World briefs 11/8/06

Australian Senate votes to lift stem-cell cloning ban

CANBERRA, Australia -- Australia's Senate narrowly voted Tuesday to lift the country's ban on cloning human embryos for stem-cell research. The bill, which was approved 34-32, would relax rules on stem-cell research and allow therapeutic cloning of embryos for medical research. The House of Representatives still needs to pass the bill before it becomes law, but lawmakers had expected the Senate to pose the biggest hurdle.

WTO invites Vietnam to join as 150th member

GENEVA -- The World Trade Organization formally invited Vietnam on Tuesday to become the commerce body's 150th member, paving the way for the country to join within 30 days of its National Assembly ratifying the accord. The organization's general council approved accession terms for Vietnam with the fall of a gavel from WTO chief Pascal Lamy, completing 11 years of entry talks with the Geneva-based group. Membership in the global trade body will give Vietnam increased access to foreign markets and the opportunity to take trade grievances to a neutral arbiter, strengthening its hand against nations that accuse it of illegally dumping goods on their markets. In return, the country will be required to drop its high tariffs on foreign imports and eliminate subsidies for state-owned companies.

Muslim gets life sentence in U.S., London bomb plot

LONDON -- Shaky camcorder footage of the World Trade Center by an al-Qaida operative was the first stage of a plot to murder hundreds in the United States and Britain with attacks on financial targets, luxury hotels and train stations. Prosecutors played the videotape at Dhiren Barot's two-day sentencing hearing, and on Tuesday, the 34-year-old British convert to Islam was given a life term. Barot, who pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to commit mass murder, is wanted in the United States to answer a four-count indictment over plans to target symbolic financial targets. Under British law, he could be temporarily transferred to the United States to stand trial. Barot shot the film five months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as he began years of meticulous planning for terror strikes on both sides of the Atlantic. The camera zooms in on signs for Wall Street and Broad Street and lingers on the World Trade Center's twin towers as someone off screen mimicked the sound of an explosion. The footage was found spliced into a videotape copy of the movie "Die Hard With A Vengeance."

-- From wire reports