■ Congo
Plane crash kills 22
A Soviet-made plane crashed Saturday in central Congo, killing all 22 people aboard, a Congo government spokesman said. The crash happened just after takeoff at the city of Boende, 800km northeast of the capital, Kinshasa, government spokesman Vital Kamerhe said. The plane was a twin-engine Antonov 26, used for passengers and cargo. Kamerhe and other government officials said they did not know whether the aircraft was carrying members of the military or civilians. Hamadoun Toure, a UN spokesman, said the plane was not one of those belonging to Congo's UN military mission, which is overseeing ceasefires and peace deals in the central African nation after a five-year war.
■ Iran
Enrichment to resume
Iran insisted Saturday its decision to suspend uranium enrichment is voluntary and temporary, saying it plans to enrich enough fuel in the future for at least one of seven nuclear power plants it expects to build. Hasan Rowhani, head of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, also said Iran would punish countries that backed US efforts to take Iran's nuclear record to the UN Security Council at last week's board meeting of the UN nuclear agency by cutting them out of development contracts. "Our decision to suspend uranium enrichment is voluntary and temporary. Uranium enrichment is Iran's natural right and [Iran] will reserve for itself this right. ... There has been and there will be no question of a permanent suspension or halt at all," Rowhani told a news conference.
■ United States
Diplomats get dress code
Concerned that sartorial scofflaws may be sullying the "professional image" of the US, the US State Department has introduced a diplomatic dress code, according to an internal memorandum seen Saturday. Although diplomats are not often associated with the kind of outerwear favored by Madonna or Britney Spears, the memo bars US envoys and their charges from sporting midriff-baring clothing, halter tops and plastic sandals at work. And, while the rules do not mandate morning coats, striped trousers or top hats, they do remind members of the US Foreign Service that clothes still make the man (or woman) in the halls of diplomacy. "As the leading US foreign affairs agency, the Department of State is in the front line of customer service to the public at home and abroad," says the directive, entitled "Department of State Guidelines on Appropriate Dress."
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