In an escalation of a showdown over the alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week, the United States and its Western allies pointed the finger of blame at President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"There is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident," based on the reported number of victims and their symptoms, as well as US and other foreign intelligence, one official in Washington told AFP.

French President Francois Hollande told his US counterpart Barack Obama that "everything was consistent" with the conclusion that Damascus was behind the attack.

"The two presidents agreed to stay in close contact to arrive at a joint response to this unprecedented aggression," the French leader's office said.

And British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned any evidence of a chemical attack may have been destroyed. "The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment," he said.

However, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault implied that a punitive strike on Syria was not imminent, in an interview with France 2 television.

"Once this (UN) investigation has ended, we await a firm decision, a clear decision, from the international community. The (UN) Security Council will meet," he said.

A White House official also shot down a report in Britain's Telegraph newspaper claiming that London and Washington planned to join forces and launch military action against Syria "within days".

"The president has not made a decision to undertake military action," the official said.

Syria's opposition says more than 1,300 people died when regime forces unleashed chemical weapons against rebel-held towns east and southwest of Damascus Wednesday, while Doctors Without Borders said 355 people had died of "neurotoxic" symptoms.

Damascus has strongly denied it carried out such an attack, instead blaming the rebels.

With the drums of a wider war beating, Syria's ally Moscow bluntly warned the West that military action against Assad's regime would be a "tragic mistake".

Syria's foreign ministry said that visiting UN disarmament envoy Angela Kane on Sunday struck the accord with the government for a probe.

The United Nations said the investigation would begin as early as Monday, stressing that the rebels and government were responsible for the safety of the UN inspectors on the ground and that a local ceasefire had been agreed.

UN chief Ban Ki-Moon said there was no time to waste.

"Every hour counts. We cannot afford any more delays," Ban told reporters in Seoul Monday, wrapping up a five-day visit to his homeland.

"The world is watching Syria," Ban said, stressing once again that the UN experts must be allowed "unfettered access" to the site and to work "unimpeded".

"We cannot allow impunity in what appears to be a grave crime against humanity," said Ban.

US officials said Obama, who held crisis talks Saturday with top security aides, would make an "informed decision" about how to respond to an "indiscriminate" chemical weapons attack.

Washington has noted that Syria offered to let UN inspectors view the site of the alleged attack, but suggested it was too little, too late, said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"At this juncture, the belated decision by the regime to grant access to the UN team is too late to be credible, including because the evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of the regime's persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the last five days," the official said.

If confirmed, the attack would mark the deadliest use of chemical agents since Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein gassed Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels in the 1980s.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said earlier Sunday the US military was "prepared to exercise whatever option" against Syria but intelligence was still being evaluated.

On a visit to Malaysia, Hagel said the US defence department had prepared "options for all contingencies" at Obama's request.

Obama had said a year ago that the use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces was a "red line" that could trigger Western intervention.

On Sunday, a strident warning came from Washington's archfoe Iran.

"If the United States crosses this red line, there will be harsh consequences for the White House," armed forces deputy chief of staff Massoud Jazayeri said, without elaborating.

The Arab League is to meet on Tuesday to discuss the alleged use of chemicals, the bloc's deputy chief Ahmed Ben Helli said.

In Israel, President Shimon Peres called for international efforts to "take out" chemical weapons in Syria as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would pull the "trigger" if needed to protect its people.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria since an uprising against Assad's rule flared in March 2011, the UN says.

In the latest eruption of violence, the governor of Hama province in central Syria was killed in a car bombing on Sunday, state television reported, in an attack it blamed on rebels.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who have diets high in omega-3 fatty acids derived from fish are less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than those who skimp on fish, new research suggests.

Researchers surveyed Swedish women about their diets and found over the course of more than seven years, long-term consumption of more than one serving of fatty fish each week was tied to a lower risk of developing the condition.

"This study is the first to attribute the protective effect of fish against rheumatoid arthritis to its content of omega-3 fatty acids," Daniela Di Giuseppe, a doctoral student at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and lead author of the study, told Reuters Health in an email.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that causes joint inflammation, deformities and disability. People with the condition also have a higher risk of heart disease, some infections, anxiety, depression and blood cancers like leukemia.

According to the American College of Rheumatology, between 0.5 and 1 percent of the U.S. population has rheumatoid arthritis. Women are two to three times more likely than men to develop the disease, which most commonly starts affecting people in their 60s.

Di Giuseppe and her colleagues followed over 32,000 women born between 1914 and 1948 who were part of the Swedish Mammography Cohort. Information about fish consumption was gathered from diet questionnaires sent to women in 1987 and 1997.

National registries were used to identify new diagnoses of rheumatoid arthritis between 2003 and 2010.

The researchers separated women into five groups based on the amount of fish-based omega-3 fatty acids in their diet, ranging from 0.21 grams or less per day to at least half a gram daily.

Eating 0.21 grams per day of omega-3 fatty acids equates to about one serving per week of salmon and other fatty fish, or four servings per week of lean fish such as cod.

During follow-up, 205 women developed rheumatoid arthritis, the researchers reported in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Long-term consumption of any fish at least once per week, compared to less than one weekly serving, was tied to a 29 percent lower risk of rheumatoid arthritis. However, that finding could have been due to chance, the researchers found.

Women who reported getting more than 0.21 grams of omega-3 fatty acids derived from fish per day both in 1987 and 1997 had a 52 percent decreased risk of developing the disease, compared to those who ate the least.

The researchers found a threshold effect, suggesting more omega-3s may not always be better. Below 0.35 grams per day, the risk of rheumatoid arthritis increased, but above it, the benefits seemed to taper off.

The results are consistent with other studies that have found threshold effects, and with recommendations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services, which advise eating at least two servings of fish per week.

The researchers concluded that "moderate consumption of fish is sufficient to reduce risk of diseases."

Genes and lifestyle may both play a role in rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Simon Helfgott, a rheumatoid arthritis researcher at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said the top three things people can do to prevent the disease are not smoke, avoid gum disease by having good oral hygiene and improve their diet.

"When we say diet there's really only one influence that seems to affect rheumatoid arthritis and that's fish consumption," Helfgott, who was not involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.

Omega-3 fatty acids are used by the body to make molecules that help regulate inflammation, known as eicosanoids. The current thinking is that eicosanoids derived from essential fatty acids in meat promote more inflammation than those from omega-3 fatty acids in fish, researchers said.

"This study lends credence to a strongly considered hypothesis in rheumatology circles, which is that we might be able to intervene in preventing rheumatoid arthritis in some individuals," Helfgott said.

Source: http://bit.ly/172ipzX Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, online August 12, 2013.

India got the better of Koreans Yun Ok-Hee, Ki Bo Bae, and Joo Hyun Jung 219-215 for their second major title in as many months. They had won the World Cup Stage 3 in Medellin, Colombia last month.

The Danish women were the surprising bronze medallists with their 210-194 win over Russia.

It was a surprising result in the title clash too as Korea had not shot less than 222 in their elimination matches against the United States, Italy and Russia. India defeated Indonesia, Mexico and Denmark en route to the final.

There was little to choose between India and Korea with the score tied at 163-163 by end three. The wind played its part in the contest as archers on both sides shot an odd 7.

Ki Bo Bae opened the final end with a disappointing 6. The next two arrows for Korea were 9 and 9.

India responded with three 10s to wrest the advantage going into the last six arrows. The Koreans managed 9-8-10 before the Indians came up with 10-10-7, winning the end 56-52 and thus the match and the title of World Cup Stage 4.

The World Cup Finals will be held next month in Paris.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Jessica Stroup has found a post-"90210" gig.

Stroup, who played Erin Silver on The CW's recently canceled "90210," has signed on for Fox's ultra-creepy serial-killer drama "The Following" as a recurring cast member.

Stroup will play Max, the niece of Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon). In the Hardy tradition, Max is an NYPD cop, currently working in the Intel Division. Max reconnects with Ryan and she becomes a valuable ally.

The drama has also cast Tiffany Boone as Mandy Lang, an impressionable young girl who finds herself to be the newest member of Joe Carroll's cult, whether she likes it or not.

Stroup and Boone join a growing cast that also includes "Dexter" actor Sam Underwood as a new addition. In the upcoming second season, Underwood will play "a very complicated and dangerous young man."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - British chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says vegetables shouldn't get second billing to meat and fish and plays up their versatility, flavors and health benefits in his book, "River Cottage Veg."

The American edition of the British best-selling cookbook is full of vegetarian and vegan recipes for salads, soups and entrees that he promises will satisfy any meat-eater's palate.

The 48-year-old celebrity chef spoke to Reuters about his passion for vegetables and the secret of how to make children eat more vegetables.

Q: Why did you write this book?

A: As a younger chef, I was more gung-ho about meat and wrote very passionately about meat. If we eat a little less of it, then we could concentrate on the quality of it and take an approach to make sure we don't waste any of it. It's a very precious food.

One of the ways we value eating meat is to eat more vegetables. Then we will have a daily cooking vernacular that makes meat and fish extra special when we wheel them out. Of course, many of these dishes go great as a serving besides meat. But they don't have to be the also-rans. They could have equal billing. They could have top billing or have sole billing.

Q: So people should eat more vegetables regardless whether or not they are vegetarians?

A: We know it's good for our health. It's not only good for us. It's good for the planet. We just have to make vegetables just delicious. We can't wag our fingers and stand on our soap box. We just have to make them lovely to eat. With the farmers market movement and farm-to-table restaurants, there is a certain amount of trickle down ... We just need to make them really accessible to the home cooks as well. Eating good fish, eating good meats, that's great, but we have to get people as excited, if not more excited, about vegetables. They should underpin all our cooking.

Q: What are your tips for making vegetables more exciting?

A: For the regular cooking sessions, just put the meat and fish on one side and just concentrate on maximizing on what you get from veg ... Then, doing things like grilling, barbecuing and caramelizing to get the flavors going, to get the contrast going. We do these things as second nature when we cook meat and fish. It should be something we should be doing for vegetables too.

Q: Any advice about feeding more vegetables to children?

A: The tip is a little bit of garlic. It's like catnip for kids. Maybe a little bit of butter. Maybe a dash of olive oil. It works for carrots, peas and beans. It gives that savory edge that everyone loves and works with the natural sweetness of the greens. The thing we do with meat is that we spice it a lot. We use herbs. We want to aromatize it. We want to make it sophisticated. All that we could do with veg too.

Baby Beet Tarte Tatin (serves 4)

8 ounces /250g rough puff pastry or all-butter puff pastry (ready-made)

A knob of butter

1 tablespoon canola or olive oil

2 teaspoons cider vinegar

2 teaspoons brown sugar

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

10 to 14 ounces /300 to 400g baby beets (the size of a golf ball or no bigger than a small apple), scrubbed and halved

For the vinaigrette

1 or 2 shallots or 3 or 4 green onions, trimmed and very finely chopped

1 teaspoon English mustard

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1/4 cup /60ml canola oil

A pinch of sugar

A handful of parsley leaves, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 375F /190C. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of about 1/4 inch /5mm. Take an oven-proof frying pan (or a tarte tatin dish) roughly 8 inches /20cm in diameter, place it upside down on the pastry, and cut around it. Wrap the pastry disk and place it in the fridge.

Melt the butter with the oil in the frying pan (or tarte tatin dish). Add the cider vinegar, sugar and some salt and pepper, stir well, then add the halved beets and toss to coat. You want the beets to fill the pan snugly, so add a few more if you need to. Cover the pan with foil, transfer to the oven, and roast for 30 to 40 minutes, until the beets are tender.

Take the pan from the oven and rearrange the beet halves neatly, placing them cut side up. Lay the pastry disk over the beets, patting it down and tucking in the edges down the side of the pan. Return to the oven and bake for 20 minutes, until the pastry is fully puffed up and golden brown.

Leave the tarte to cool in its pan for about 15 minutes, then turn it out by putting a plate over the top and inverting it. Pour any juices left in the pan back over the beets.

Put the ingredients for the vinaigrette into a screw-topped jar, season well with salt and pepper, and shake to combine. Trickle over the tarte tatin and serve.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Bill Trott)

Flanked by his lawyers, Manning, 25, stood at attention in his dress uniform and showed no reaction as military judge Col. Denise Lind announced the punishment without explanation during a brief hearing.

Among the spectators, there was a gasp, and one woman buried her face in her hands. Guards hurried Manning out of the courtroom as about a half-dozen supporters shouted from the back: "We'll keep fighting for you, Bradley!" and "You're our hero!"

With good behavior and credit for the more than three years he has been held, Manning could be out in about 6 years, according to his defense attorney David Coombs.

Coombs told a press conference at a nearby hotel that early next week he'll file, through the Army, a request that the president pardon the soldier "or at the very least commute" the sentence to time already served.

"The time to end Brad's suffering is now," Coombs said. "The time for our president to focus on protecting whistleblowers instead of punishing them is now."

The former intelligence analyst was found guilty last month of 20 crimes, including six violations of the Espionage Act, as part of the Obama administration's unprecedented crackdown on media leaks.

He was acquitted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which carried a potential life in prison without parole.

Manning could have gotten 90 years behind bars. Prosecutors asked for at least 60 as a warning to other soldiers, while Manning's lawyer suggested he get no more than 25, because some of the documents he leaked will be declassified by then.

He will have to serve at least one-third of his sentence before he is eligible for parole. He was also demoted to private and dishonorably discharged.

There was no immediate word from Manning's mother in Wales, who was reported to be in poor health, but the soldier's uncle, who is also Welsh, deplored the sentence.

"I hope it will be reduced," Kevin Fox told BBC television. "To be honest, he shouldn't have been given any time at all. In my eyes, he is a hero."

Prosecutors had no immediate comment, while the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and other activists decried the punishment.

"When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system," said Ben Wizner, head of the ACLU's speech and technology project.

In a statement, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has taken refuge at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, decried Manning's trial and conviction as "an affront to basic concepts of Western justice."

But he called the sentence a "significant strategic victory" because Manning could be out in less than nine years.

Gabriel Schoenfeld, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank and author of the book "Necessary Secrets," welcomed Manning's punishment.

"The sentence is a tragedy for Bradley Manning, but it is one he brought upon himself," he said. "It will certainly serve to bolster deterrence against other potential leakers."

But he also warned that the sentence will ensure that Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker who has taken refuge in Russia, "will do his best never to return to the United States and face a trial and stiff sentence."

Manning digitally copied and released more than 700,000 documents, including Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department cables, while working in 2010 in Iraq.

The Crescent, Okla., native also leaked video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that mistakenly killed at least nine people, including a Reuters photographer.

A potentially more explosive leak case unfolded as Manning's court-martial was underway, when Snowden was charged with espionage for exposing the NSA's Internet and telephone surveillance programs.

At his trial, Manning said he gave the material to the secrets-spilling website WikiLeaks to expose the U.S. military's "bloodlust" and generate debate over the wars and U.S. policy.

During the sentencing phase, he apologized for the damage he caused, saying, "When I made these decisions, I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people."

His lawyers also argued that Manning suffered extreme inner turmoil over his gender identity his feeling that he was a woman trapped in a man's body while serving in the macho military during the "don't ask, don't tell" era. Among the evidence was a photo of him in a blond wig and lipstick.

Coombs argued that Manning had been full of youthful idealism and "really, truly, genuinely believed that this information could make a difference."

Prosecutors showed that al-Qaida used material from the helicopter attack in a propaganda video and that Osama bin Laden presumably read some of the leaked documents. Some of the material was found in bin Laden's hideout after he was killed.

Also, government witnesses testified the leaks endangered U.S. intelligence sources, some of whom were moved to other countries for their safety. And several ambassadors were recalled, expelled or reassigned because of embarrassing disclosures.

The Obama administration has charged seven people with leaking to the news media, while only three people were prosecuted in all previous administrations combined.

Prosecutors called Manning an anarchist and an attention-seeking traitor, while supporters have hailed him as a whistleblower and likened him to Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

The secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam was released to The New York Times and other newspapers in a case touched off an epic clash between the Nixon administration and the press and led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling on the First Amendment.

In a telephone interview after Manning's sentencing, Ellsberg called the soldier "one more casualty of a horrible, wrongful war that he tried to shorten."

"I think his example will always be an inspiration of civil and moral courage to truth tellers in the future," Ellsberg said.

___

Associated Press writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

Brown, who helped the Kings win a Stanley Cup in 2011, had one year left on his current deal and, as a result, will remain a King through the 2021-22 season, the team said in a statement.

He joined Jeff Carter (signed through 2022), Drew Doughty (2019), Jonathan Quick (2023), Mike Richards (2020) and Slava Voynov (2019) for the long haul with the Kings.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but multiple media reports said the extension is worth $47 million.

Brown, 28, has played his entire nine-year NHL career with the Kings and became the franchise's first player ever to hoist the Stanley Cup when the Kings beat the New Jersey Devils in the 2012 Stanley Cup Final.

Last year, Brown helped Los Angeles reach the Western Conference finals where they were eliminated by the eventual champion the Chicago Blackhawks.

The American, drafted in the first round of the 2003 draft (13th overall), has accumulated 388 points (181 goals and 207 assists) and 452 penalty minutes in 641 regular season games.

(Reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Frank Pingue)

(Reuters) - A giant panda at the Atlanta zoo delivered an extra bundle of joy on Monday when she gave birth to twins, an apparent surprise to zoo officials who had been excitedly anticipating the birth of a single cub.

Lun Lun delivered the tiny, hairless duo at 6:21 p.m. and 6:23 p.m. EDT, the first giant panda cubs to be born in the United States in 2013, Zoo Atlanta officials said.

"We had no reason to expect twins, although we had not ruled them out," said Dwight Lawson, deputy director of Zoo Atlanta, adding that pandas regularly give birth to twins. "On the few ultrasound images that Mom actually cooperated with, we only saw one developing fetus."

Twin cubs have never been born at Zoo Atlanta, zoo officials said. Lun Lun has given birth to three cubs there.

Giant pandas are an endangered species that make their homes in a few mountain ranges in central China. There are about 1,600 living the wild, and about 300 in captivity, mostly in China, zoo officials said.

The sex of the cubs has not been determined yet, Lawson said. Panda cubs are about the size and weight of a stick of butter, and are pink, hairless and blind.

Lun Lun weighs more than 200 pounds (91 kg), he said. Panda babies are about 1/900th the size of their mothers, according to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park.

While pandas often give birth to twins in the wild, they are only able to raise one at a time - leaving the second twin to perish, Lawson said.

But in a zoo setting, staff are able to incubate one cub while the mother takes care of the other, and then swap them out so she can have a chance at successfully raising both, Lawson said.

"It's physically difficult for the mother panda to manipulate more than one cub," Lawson said.

The zoo will work with experts in China to decide on how to name the twins once they turn 100 days old, Lawson said.

For example, Taiwanese rockstar Su Huilun named Lun Lun, while U.S. actor Jack Black was at the naming of her most recent cub, Po, whose namesake character Black voiced in the "Kung Fu Panda" movies.

The cubs are the fourth and fifth babies to born to Lun Lun and male Yang Yang, both 15. Their firstborn, Mei Lan, 6, is at China's Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, and the other two - 4-year-old Xi Lan and 2-year-old Po - are on site at the zoo but being prepared for a move to China later in the year.

All five offspring are the product of artificial insemination, according to zoo officials.

(Reporting by Karen Brooks in Austin, Texas; Editing by Tim Gaynor and Sandra Maler)