Washington

New York Times reporter Judith Miller has been released from prison after agreeing to testify in a federal probe on the outing of an undercover CIA agent, the newspaper announced. Miller, who spent 12 weeks in a prison near Washington, was set free after her source waived her pledge of confidentiality, the Times said on Thursday.

John Roberts, President George Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, gained easy Senate confirmation on Thursday to become the United States high court’s 17th chief justice. Roberts was approved by a vote of 78 to 22, with all of the Senate’s 55 Republicans voting in lockstep to support the nominee.

An estimated 24-million violent and property crimes were committed in the United States last year, which represents the lowest level in over three decades, according to a government report. The same survey, hailed by the Bush administration as a reward for its tough-on-crime policy, also found that only 50% of all assaults against individuals were being reported to authorities.

Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda for almost 20 years, the past nine as an elected president, says he has accomplished much of what he set out to do but still can’t shake his country’s lack of an industrial sector. He was addressing the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent foreign-policy think tank in Washington, DC.

A Nasa orbiter has detected a series of dynamic geological and thermal changes on the surface of the red planet, possibly caused by a ”Mars quake”, mission scientists said on Tuesday. The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft found gullies on a sand dune that did not exist in 2002 and fresh tracks left by tumbling boulders.

A panel of experts on Zimbabwe admitted frustration on Tuesday that international pressure against President Robert Mugabe has failed to weaken his hold on power. Tom Woods, a top African affairs official at the United States State Department, said the grim prospect for Zimbabweans is that Mugabe will remain in power until his term ends in 2008.

The United States will send four astronauts to the moon in 2018 in a return to its pioneering manned mission into space, Nasa administrator Michael Griffin announced on Monday. Nasa is to design a new rocket based on the technology from its ageing shuttles that are to be retired in 2010, Griffin said.

The United States Catholic Church, stung by a sex-abuse scandal, is poised to launch a quiet campaign to clean its seminaries of people suspected of homosexual orientation, sparking protests from the gay community whose leaders have compared the effort to a witch-hunt.

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong was given major support in his fight against doping allegations on Friday by the International Cycling Union and a Texas legal triumph. Armstrong had his denials of taking performance-enhancing drugs strongly bolstered in separate findings.

Iraq President Jalal Talabani on Friday warned that an abrupt withdrawal of United States forces from his country ”could lead to the victory of the terrorists in Iraq” and make Iraq more vulnerable to interference from neighbouring countries. But Talabani hinted that if all goes well, the US-led coalition could leave within two years.

United States Senator Hillary Clinton fuelled the political debate over Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday, insisting on an independent inquiry into the federal response and sharply rejecting President George Bush’s bid to lead the probe himself. ”I don’t think the government should be investigating itself,” Clinton said.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said on Wednesday that 90% of buildings in the worst-hit area of the Gulf Coast in his state are ”totally just gone” after Hurricane Katrina, as the mayor of New Orleans said it will be three to four months before residents can return to the city, which is nearly 80% submerged.

Americans are sceptical about a L’Equipe report that 1999 urine samples of seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong have tested positive for erythropoeitin and are critical of the French newspaper’s story. ”Armstrong’s lie” blared the newspaper’s front-page headline.

Books about boy wizard Harry Potter have become favorite reading material among Islamic terror suspects at the United States detention centre at Guant&aacute;namo Bay, Cuba, <i>The Washington Times</i> reported on Monday. "We’ve got a few who are kind of hooked on it," said a librarian working at the centre.

Top-seeded Andy Roddick and unseeded James Blake won straight-set semifinal matches to advance to the final at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic on Saturday. Roddick beat 13th-seeded Paradorn Srichaphan 7-6 (4), 6-2, advancing to a final for the 29th time in his career. Blake then beat 10th-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-3 in the other semifinal to reach his fourth career final.

A Cape Town businessman has been sent to prison in the United States after pleading guilty to the illegal export — to Pakistan via South Africa — of American-made items that can be used in nuclear weapons, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Friday.

Gilles Muller of Luxembourg defeated ninth-seeded Nicolas Massu of Chile 7-6 (2), 6-4 in the second round of the Legg Mason Classic on Wednesday. Muller, who lost to Lleyton Hewitt in last year’s championship final, will next face Arnaud Clement of France after he defeated Britain’s Richard Bloomfield 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (7).

United States food aid is inefficient, wasteful and designed in most cases to benefit domestic constituencies more than needy people in developing countries, according to a new report released this week by the Minnesota-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

The United States expressed concern on Thursday over China’s increasingly close ties with Zimbabwe at a time when the international community is trying to isolate the African state for gross human rights and other violations.