Wednesday, October 21, 2009 VIENNA: Nuclear talks between Iran and world powers here are "making progress," albeit "slower than expected" but a deal was "possible", UN watchdog chief Mohamed El-Baradei said Tuesday."We spent the whole day today in bilateral and trilateral consultations," ElBaradei told reporters after around an hour of talks. "We still hope to be able to reach an agreement. It's a complex process," he said. "There are technical aspects, many technical issues that we have to hammer out. It is of course a question of confidence buiding, of guarantees. "I think and I believe that we are making progress. It is maybe slower than I expected but we are moving forward and we are going to meet tomorrow at 10:00 am."
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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