R&B star Beyonce has announced plans to perform in Malaysia, two years after scrapping a concert over the country’s strict dress code.

The singer is due to stage a leg of her world tour in the capital Kuala Lumpur next month, according to her website.

In 2007, her planned appearance drew opposition from the Islamic Party and organisers said the concert was called off due to “scheduling conflicts”.

Female performers are expected to dress and behave conservatively in Malaysia.

Islamic groups have already expressed their opposition to the concert and say they will send a protest note to the government.

“We are against Western sexy performances. We don’t think our people need that,” said Sabki Yusof, youth leader of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party.

Organisers for Beyonce’s show, which will be her first career performance in Malaysia, have yet to comment.

The singer performed in Indonesia after shelving the concert in 2007, where rules governing stage performances are more relaxed.

Other singers have encountered problems with performing in Malaysia, including The Pussycat Dolls, who were censured in 2006 after their concert flouted the rules.

Melting world: mountainous icebergs in Greeland’s Sermilik Fjord.

My taxi driver is telling me about his meal last night. His name is William. He ate whale.

Melting world: mountainous icebergs in Greeland’s Sermilik Fjord.

“Delicious,” he says, kissing the tips of his fingers on one hand, making the universal sign for good tasting food.

William tells me he went out on a boat with some friends a few days ago and shot the whale. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

Welcome to Greenland. On this remote but enormous island subsistence whale hunting is allowed.

This was just the memorable start to an extraordinary journey.

Cameraman Neil Bennett and I had traveled to the small town of Tasiilaq in southeastern Greenland to meet up with the Arctic Sunrise, a ship belonging to the environmental group Greenpeace

The US president says his decision to shelve a missile defence plan was not dictated by Russian opposition.

“The Russians don’t make determinations about what our defence posture is,” Barack Obama told CBS television.

“If the by-product of it is that the Russians feel a little less paranoid… then that’s a bonus,” Mr Obama said.

US conservatives have criticised the decision to scrap the plan to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.

Mr Obama’s predecessor, George W Bush, had argued that the system was necessary to deal with potential threats from Iran.

Moscow said it was aimed against Russia, and has welcomed the US decision to abandon it.

Mr Obama’s plan is to replace it with a defence system using sea and land-based interceptors.

In a series of wide-ranging interviews with US television networks on Sunday, Mr Obama also focused on:

• The economy: “I want to be clear, that probably the jobs picture is not going to improve considerably and it could even get a little bit worse over the next couple of months.” - CNN’s State of the Union.

• Healthcare: “About two-thirds of what we’ve proposed would be from money that’s already in the healthcare system but just being spent badly. And as I said before, this is not me making wild assertions.” - CBS’s Face the Nation.

• CIA interrogations: “I continue to believe that nobody’s above the law” - CBS’s Face the Nation.

• Race: “Are there some people who don’t like me because of my race? I’m sure there are.” - ABC’s This Week

• Afghanistan: “I just want to make sure that everybody understands that you don’t make decisions about resources before you have the strategy ready.” - ABC’s This Week.

• North Korea: Kim Jong-il is “pretty healthy and in control” - CNN’s State of the Union.

No negotiations with Moscow

Questioned on the CBS’s Face the Nation programme, Mr Obama said: “My task here was not to negotiate with the Russians.”

“Russia had always been paranoid about this, but George Bush was right. This wasn’t a threat to them,” Mr Obama said.

Iran has held regular tests of its long-range missiles

He added that the replacement plan would not be a threat to Russia, either.

The US leader said it would be a bonus if the Russians were “now willing to work more effectively with us to deal with threats like ballistic missiles from Iran or nuclear development in Iran”.

Writing in the New York Times earlier, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the decision to drop the initial plan was a “pragmatic” one, scolding those who he said provided a “devoted following” to missile defence plans that were “unworkable, prohibitively expensive and could never be practically deployed”.

“I have found since taking this post that when it comes to missile defence, some hold a view bordering on theology that regards any change of plans or any cancellation of a program as abandonment or even breaking faith,” said Mr Gates, a Republican who also served as defence secretary during George W Bush’s final years as president.

Under the original plan, the US signed a deal in August 2008 with Poland to site 10 interceptors at a base near the Baltic Sea, and with the Czech Republic to build a radar station on its territory.

FBI agents raided Najibullah Zazi’s home on Saturday and took him into custody.

FBI agents arrested Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Colorado resident and Afghan national questioned in an alleged terrorist plot in the United States.

FBI agents raided Najibullah Zazi’s home on Saturday and took him into custody.

Zazi and his father, Mohammed Zazi, were handcuffed without incident late Saturday as authorities raided Zazi’s home in the Denver suburb of Aurora, according to CNN’s Jim Spellman.

FBI agents in New York arrested Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, a resident of Flushing, New York. Officials said Afzali is a legal permanent resident from Afghanistan.

All three men are charged with knowingly and willingly making false statements to the FBI.

Arthur Folsom, attorney for the Zazis, met with them at the FBI offices in Denver Sunday morning, said Wendy Aiello, the attorney’s spokeswoman.

Najibullah Zazi and Mohammed Zazi are scheduled to appear in federal court in Colorado on Monday. Afzali is scheduled to make his initial court appearance in New York on Monday.

Earlier on Saturday, Najibullah Zazi, who had been questioned for the past three days by federal investigators, declined to attend a fourth day of interviews.

Zazi has admitted to having ties to al Qaeda, an administration official familiar with the matter told CNN on Friday.

Folsom denied the allegations Friday night and said Zazi did not admit to having ties to the terror group. He also said the FBI has not made an offer.

“He never admitted going to a terrorist training camp,” Folsom told CNN affiliate KUSA in Denver. “Some of the information in news reports was not true,” Folsom said. “There have been no plea negotiations … they (FBI) haven’t made any offer.”

Zazi also told The Denver Post on Saturday that he has not admitted any ties to the terrorist group. He also denied taking part in insurgency training in Pakistan or involvement in a terror plot.

“It’s not true,” Zazi said in a phone interview with the newspaper. “I have nothing to hide. It’s all media publications reporting whatever they want. They have been reporting all this nonsense.”

He said he lived in Pakistan before moving to New York as a teenager. While in Pakistan, he said, he spends a lot of time with his wife.

“I was there (at her house) the whole time,” Zazi said.

The alleged terrorist plot, which came to light this week after raids in New York, may have involved a major transportation center, like a large railroad or subway station, sources close to the investigation told CNN on Thursday.

There were plans for an attack, presumably in the New York area, where crowds are large and security screening for nonairport travelers is lax, the sources said.

Two sources familiar with the investigation said that Zazi had video of New York’s Grand Central Terminal, a massive junction of rail and subway lines, as well as shops and restaurants, which see an average of more than a half million visitors per day.

A former counterterrorism official said backpacks, computers and maps were found during searches in the New York City borough of Queens, and field tests turned up positive for explosives. But such tests often yield false positives, and the former official was unaware whether more definitive test results had been obtained.

President Barack Obama will meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday to try to relaunch peace talks.

Mr Obama will hold separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, before a joint meeting.

Efforts to restart the peace process have so far been blocked by disagreements over Israeli settlements.

A senior US official told the BBC that there was no expectation of an announcement after Tuesday’s meetings.

He said the meetings are “clear sign of the President’s personal commitment to this issue.”

But he added that it was critical to put the discussions “in context”.

“Nine months ago there was a war in Gaza,” he said. “The Israeli government has only existed for five months.

“And now these three leaders are going to sit down in the same room and continue to narrow the gaps.”

Mr Netenyahu’s office issued a statement welcoming the invitation to talks and saying they would be held “without preconditions”, Reuters news agency reported.

‘Deep commitment’

The announcement of the meetings, which will take place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, came after US envoy George Mitchell’s latest round of shuttle diplomacy ended without agreement.

The White House said the meetings next week would continue efforts by Mr Obama, Mr Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “to lay the groundwork for the relaunch of negotiations”.

Mr Mitchell said Mr Obama’s desire to personally engage at this juncture showed his “deep commitment to comprehensive peace”.

The US envoy held a series of meetings with Mr Netanyahu last week in a fresh attempt at getting a deal on Jewish settlement activity.

He also went to the West Bank to talk to Mr Abbas.

Mr Mitchell was hoping for a consensus before all sides attend the UN General Assembly, but he returned to the US without reaching any agreement.

Mr Abbas and the US administration have been demanding a complete freeze on Israeli construction activity.

Mr Netanyahu had previously offered a temporary freeze for several months, but not in East Jerusalem or in cases where homes have already been approved.

He noted this week that there had been a slowdown in settlement construction, but that work would continue on 2,400 units currently being built.

‘New conditions’

On Saturday, both sides were reported as blaming each other for the lack of any agreement to resume the peace process following Mr Mitchell’s visit.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yossi Levi said the Palestinian Authority was “preventing the resumption of the peace process by making conditions that it has not made in the past”, AFP news agency said.

It was not reported which conditions he was referring to.

But Mr Abbas said Israel was to blame for not agreeing to a total freeze in settlement building.

“The road is now blocked,” he told journalists in Cairo.

“There is no more work [for Mr Mitchell] with the Western or Palestinian sides because we are complying with all our duties.

“The focus has to be on the Israeli side.”