International News

LOS ANGELES (AP) An AEG Live LLC executive denied Monday that he pushed Michael Jackson to rehearse for his ill-fated comeback concerts, refuting earlier testimony by the singer's longtime makeup artist and stylist.

Paul Gongaware said he never told Jackson's assistant to get the singer out of a locked bathroom and to a rehearsal, an incident that was described to jurors by makeup artist Karen Faye.

"Never, never happened," Gongaware said, shaking his head.

Faye testified last month that she overhead Gongaware tell Jackson's assistant to do "whatever it takes" to get the "Thriller" singer to a rehearsal. She described Gongaware as sounding "angry and kind of desperate" on the call.

Gongaware told jurors hearing a negligent hiring case filed by Jackson's mother that the entertainer was under no obligation to rehearse.

The differing accounts are just one of several pieces of contradictory information jurors will have to consider when testimony in the case concludes. Katherine Jackson is suing AEG Live, claiming it failed to properly investigate the physician convicted of administering an overdose of the anesthetic propofol to her son.

AEG denies it hired Conrad Murray, or could have known that Murray was giving the singer propofol as a sleep aid.

Faye, whose testimony was interrupted when other witnesses had to be called, will return to the witness stand before the trial's conclusion and is likely to be questioned by AEG's attorneys about the Gongaware incident.

Gongaware also said he was mistaken when he wrote in an email that his company was paying for Murray.

"We want to remind him that it is AEG, not MJ who is paying his salary," Gongaware wrote in the email, which was sent after Jackson missed rehearsals. "We want him to understand what is expected of him."

Gongaware said AEG agreed to advance Murray's $150,000 a month fee to Jackson, but the costs would have come out of the singer's share of "This Is It" earnings. He said he never instructed Murray about how to care for the singer.

The promoter and producer also told jurors on Monday that he never considered doing a background check on Murray, or anyone such as Faye, who was working directly with Jackson.

Murray had several liens and child support judgments and was facing foreclosure before agreeing to work with Jackson.

"I just expect doctors to be ethical," Gongaware said. "Their financial side of their life shouldn't affect their medical judgment."

The executive was shown several emails that he was sent less than a month before Jackson's death in which tabloid newspapers were speculating the singer was suffering from cancer.

Gongaware urged his company not to respond. "Our redemption will be when he does his shows," he wrote about Jackson. "We don't have to sell tickets, so we can just sit back and prove them wrong by just doing it."

The trial is entering its sixth week. AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips is expected to testify later this week.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

By Isabella Cota

SAN JOSE (Reuters) - The regional human rights court for the Americas on Thursday told El Salvador it must let doctors perform an abortion on a woman carrying a seriously deformed fetus that has put her life at risk, but the Central American nation was not bound by the move.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights took the action after El Salvador's Supreme Court issued a ruling on Wednesday rejecting an appeal brought by the 22-year-old woman at the center of the case. She had sought an abortion even though El Salvador banned all types of abortion in 1999.

The woman uses the name "Beatriz" to protect her identity. Her fetus has a serious condition known as anencephaly that results in only partial brain development. Such a fetus has little or no chance of surviving after birth.

Beatriz, meanwhile, suffers from lupus and kidney problems, posing a grave threat to her own health.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in Costa Rica, said El Salvador needs to take urgent action to protect the life of Beatriz. That means performing an abortion, a spokeswoman for the court said.

It has asked El Salvador's government to comply with its nonbinding resolution before June 8. The court does not have the power to take steps against member countries such as El Salvador.

The case has brought new attention to El Salvador's strict abortion laws. Women found guilty of having an abortion in El Salvador face lengthy jail sentences.

VIEWS ON ABORTION

Attitudes in Latin America, a predominantly Roman Catholic region, are slowly changing toward abortion with some countries such as Colombia relaxing their rules in order to permit abortions in the case of rape.

Beatriz, who is 26 weeks pregnant, had asked El Salvador's top court to approve the abortion. But in a 4-1 ruling, the court refused her request.

"The rights of the mother cannot be privileged over those of the unborn child," the court said in its decision, arguing "the Constitution protects human life from the point of conception."

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is part of the rights framework for the 35 members of the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS).

El Salvador is among the countries that have signed the organization's American Convention on Human Rights.

Article 4 of that convention, entitled the "Right to Life," states: "Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life."

When ratifying the convention, El Salvador said it recognized the competence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights "insofar as this recognition is compatible with the provisions in the Constitution" of El Salvador.

The Latin American nations that permit abortions during normal pregnancies are Uruguay, Cuba and former British colony Guyana. Mexico City's leftist local government decided to allow abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Argentina's Supreme Court ruled last year that all rape victims have the right to a legal abortion, clarifying an ambiguously worded law and reflecting a gradual change in attitudes toward abortion in society.

However, there has been no big push for abortion to be made legal in Argentina, and President Cristina Fernandez has said she does not support legalized abortion.

(Reporting by Nelson Renteria in San Salvador and Isabella Cota in San Jose; Additional reporting by Hilary Burke in Buenos Aires; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Dave Graham and Will Dunham)

LONDON (Reuters) - Kingfisher, Europe's largest DIY retailer, posted a near-30 percent drop in first quarter profit as weak demand and poor weather continued to hit trade in its key markets.

The group, which runs B&Q and Screwfix in the UK and Castorama and Brico Depot in France, on Thursday said retail profit was 114 million pounds ($172 million) in the 13 weeks to May 4, down 29.2 percent on a year ago and well below a company compiled consensus forecast of 137 million pounds.

Revenue was 2.6 billion pounds, down 4.2 percent on a like for like basis, and deteriorating from a 3.4 percent fall in the final quarter of last year.

Like-for-like sales fell 5.6 percent in France and 4.7 percent in UK and Ireland, but rose 0.7 percent in its smaller 'other international' arm, led by growth in China and Russia.

Kingfisher is suffering along with other European retailers from cash-strapped customers holding off buying "big ticket" items like kitchens and bathrooms.

Continued poor weather across Europe added to its woes, particularly in March, accounting for much of its first-quarter profit fall. However the firm said more normal weather at the end of the period had heralded an improved performance.

Chief Executive Ian Cheshire said it would focus hard on margin and cost initiatives to help ease tough conditions, such as through buying more goods centrally from cheaper manufacturing centres like China.

Its operating margin was 4.3 percent, down from 6 percent a year earlier.

The group struggled in its two biggest markets. B&Q's like-for-like sales fell 5.6 percent in the first quarter, worse than analysts' consensus forecast of down between 2 and 3 percent.

In France like-for-like sales fell 4.1 percent at Castorama and 7.3 percent at Brico Depot, broadly in range with respective consensus forecasts of 4-5 percent and 5-7 percent declines.

Shares in the firm closed at 327.8 pence on Wednesday, valuing the firm at around 7.7 billion pounds.

(Reporting by Neil Maidment; Editing by Kate Holton)

LOS ANGELES (AP) Jurors hearing a lawsuit against concert giant AEG Live LLC have been shown emails in which top company executives expressed fears about Michael Jackson's health and the amount of time they had to get the singer prepared for his ill-fated series of comeback tours.

The messages were displayed Wednesday during testimony from AEG Live co-CEO Paul Gongaware, who at one point sent his boss' assistant a message stating the show was giving him nightmares and causing him to break out in cold sweats at night.

Gongaware testified that he was joking, but it was just one of several messages expressing concerns about Jackson's health. Another message from Randy Phillips, the top-ranking executive at AEG Live, wrote after one of Jackson's missed rehearsals that, "we are running out of time.

"That is my biggest fear," Phillips wrote to Gongaware and the CEO of AEG Live's parent company, Anschutz Entertainment Group, on June 20, 2009, five days before Jackson's death.

Gongaware said he didn't agree with Phillips' assessment. "He may have said that, but I didn't agree with that," Gongaware testified.

His testimony came under questioning by an attorney for Jackson's mother, who is suing AEG Live and claims it failed to properly investigate the doctor convicted of causing her son's death. Gongaware and Phillips are also named as defendants in the case.

AEG denies that it hired former cardiologist Conrad Murray, or could have foreseen the singer's death. The company's defense attorneys have not yet questioned Gongaware on the stand.

The company's defense attorney, Marvin S. Putnam, said outside court that the emails reflect the company was concerned about Jackson's health, and expressed those concerns to Jackson's lawyer and manager before his death.

Jurors have seen numerous emails throughout the trial, including several sent by people working on Jackson's "This Is It" comeback shows in which they expressed concerns about Jackson's health. Production manager John "Bugzee" Hougdahl, wrote Phillips in the last week of the singer's life that Jackson was on a downward slide.

"I have watched him deteriorate in front of my eyes over the last 8 weeks" Hougdahl wrote.

Katherine Jackson's attorney questioned Gongaware about whether the company put too much emphasis on the showbiz maxim, "The show must go on."

Gongaware denied that was the case.

He told the jury that he was concerned about Jackson's health, but that he thought "This Is It" tour director Kenny Ortega may have been overstating concerns about the singer's wellbeing.

Phillips also expressed concerns about Ortega, writing to Gongaware's private email address, "This guy is really starting to concern me."

Gongaware testified Wednesday that he wasn't sure who Phillips was referring to, and his boss may have been expressing concerns about Jackson or Murray.

Six weeks before Jackson's death, Gongaware sent an email to an assistant for the CEO of AEG in which he urged her to, "Pray for me. "This is a nightmare. Not coincidentally, I have them now every night. Cold sweats, too. Life used to be so much fun..."

Gongaware said he was joking in the message. "I don't have cold sweats," he said. "I don't have nightmares. I sleep great."

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- When forecasters from the National Weather Service track a hurricane, they use models from several different supercomputers located around the world to create their predictions.

Some of those models are more accurate than others. During Hurricane Sandy last October, for instance, the model from the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting in the United Kingdom predicted eight days before landfall that the large storm would hit the East Coast, while the American supercomputer model showed Sandy drifting out to sea.

The American model eventually predicted Sandy's landfall four days before the storm hit plenty of time for preparation but revealed a potential weakness in the American computer compared to the European system. It left some meteorologists fuming.

"Let me be blunt: the state of operational U.S. numerical weather prediction is an embarrassment to the nation and it does not have to be this way," wrote Cliff Maas, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington on his weather blog.

Meteorologists agree that the two American supercomputers that provide storm models are underpowered which is why the National Weather Service plans on upgrading those computers in the next two years. The two main forecasting computers one in Orlando, Fla. and the other in Reston, Va., will receive $25 million in upgrades as part of the Hurricane Sandy supplemental bill that was recently approved by Congress.

"This will improve weather forecasting across the board," said Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Certainly one area of concern that has received some attention were these larger high-impact extreme weather events. The European model is able to pick up on those storms earlier than our model."

Jeff Masters, meteorology director at the online forecasting service Weather Underground, said that other than Hurricane Sandy, the American model outperformed the European model during the 2012 hurricane season but if you look at a three-year period, the European model still comes out on top.

"If the U.S. did invest more money and people into making the model better, then the forecast would be better," Masters said. "The money we spend on weather forecasts and improving them pays for itself."

Still, with hurricane season starting Saturday, forecasters say the average person living in a coastal area shouldn't worry about the capability gap between the computers.

"I really could care less which is the better model because we have access to them both," said James Franklin, branch chief of the hurricane specialist unit. "It's immaterial to us."

And forecasters say that hurricane modeling and forecasting has become more accurate overall in the last 10 years.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami use both American and European models and other models then average them together for a storm's projected path. The computers take data from weather satellites, observations and weather balloons, then plug the data into complex algorithms.

The fact that the American supercomputer is lacking in processing power does need to be addressed. In the long run, improving its computing power will increase the overall quality of data for scientists drawing from multiple sources.

"You want to have the best information possible when you're trying to decide what to do," Masters said. "Having better forecast models is going to improve your chances."

Experts also say the quality of a nation's computer capability is emblematic of its underlying commitment to research, science and innovation.

"If you just bought a bigger computer, it will help but it will not solve the problem. There are many other aspects that need to be addressed," said Richard Rood, a professor at the University of Michigan's department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Science.

Rood said that the meteorologists who run the European computer have invested time, effort and money into developing algorithms.

Another issue, he said, is the long-term maintenance of the satellites run by NASA and NOAA.

"If they fail to continue to deliver the observations, then our forecast is going to be less good," he said "We all use the same set of raw data. For the most part, we all start from the same observations. If there is a threat to safety and property and people, it is far more related to the state of the observing system than it is to any deficiencies or any gap we might have with the Europeans on the predictive model."

There are other reasons why the European model has outperformed the American model, many of them having to do with the structure of the two agencies that run each computer, according to NOAA:

The European model focuses on medium-range weather prediction, while the American model does a lot more it looks at short-, medium- and long-range global weather, along with atmospheric, ocean, coastal, hurricane and space weather.

The European center has one budget that focuses only on research and development relating to medium-range weather, while NOAA has a fragmented budget and multiple research and development projects "loosely" managed under multiple organizations.

The European center doesn't build observational systems while NOAA does.

"There's some differences in the basic goals and purposes of these different centers," said Chris Davis, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "That often has to be kept in mind when trying to understand differences in the performance models used."

___

Follow Tamara Lush on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tamaralush

By Emily Flitter

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have filed an indictment against the operators of digital currency exchange Liberty Reserve, accusing the Costa Rica-based company of helping criminals around the world launder more than $6 billion in illicit funds linked to everything from child pornography to software for hacking into banks.

The indictment unsealed on Tuesday said Liberty Reserve had more than a million users worldwide, including at least 200,000 in the United States, and virtually all of its business was related to suspected criminal activity.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called the case perhaps "the largest international money laundering case ever brought by the United States".

"Liberty Reserve has emerged as one of the principal means by which cyber-criminals around the world distribute, store and launder the proceeds of their illegal activity," according to the indictment filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Officials said authorities in Spain, Costa Rica and New York arrested five people on Friday, including the company's founder, Arthur Budovsky, and seized bank accounts and Internet domains associated with Liberty Reserve.

Switzerland's Federal Office of Justice said the United States had requested legal assistance on May 16. The Swiss said they complied with the request in full by May 21, seizing a computer server used by Liberty Reserve.

The indictment detailed a system of payments that allowed users to open accounts under false names with blatant monikers like "Russia Hackers" and "Hacker Account".

The use of digital currency has expanded over the past decade, attracting users ranging from video gamers looking for ways to buy and sell virtual goods to those who lack faith in the traditional banking system.

Touted by some investors as the future of money, these virtual currencies have gained the attention of U.S. regulators looking to bring them under anti-money-laundering rules.

The U.S. Treasury said on Tuesday it named Liberty Reserve under the USA Patriot Act as "specifically designed and frequently used to facilitate money laundering in cyber space".

That designation, a first against a virtual currency exchange, prohibits banks or other payment processors from doing business with Liberty Reserve, even under a new name.

The Treasury also said Liberty Reserve's virtual currency was used to anonymously buy and sell software designed to steal personal information and attack financial institutions.

CRACKDOWN ON VIRTUAL MONEY?

Liberty Reserve, with around 12 million transactions per year, laundered over $6 billion in criminal proceeds since it began operating in 2006, the indictment said.

A ring of hackers who recently stole $45 million from two Middle Eastern banks by hacking prepaid debit cards used Liberty Reserve to distribute their take, according to court papers.

Tech blogger Brian Krebs, a former Washington Post reporter who now runs the blog Krebs On Security, wrote on Tuesday "the action against Liberty Reserve is part of a larger effort by the U.S. government to put pressure on virtual currencies".

Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen told a press conference it was a response to a specific abuse of the financial system. "I want to make clear that today's action does not mean that we are trying to eliminate virtual currencies and their providers," he said.

On Tuesday, the company's website, www.libertyreserve.com, displayed the message: "This domain name has been seized by the United States Global Illicit Financial Team."

In addition to Budovsky, who was arrested in Spain along with his deputy, Azzedine El Amine, co-founder Vladimir Kats was arrested in Brooklyn, New York. Two technology designers, Maxim Chukarev and Mark Marmilev, were also arrested, Chukarev in Costa Rica and Marmilev in New York.

Two more company employees were still at large in Costa Rica, according to officials: Ahmed Yassine Abdelghani and Allan Esteban Hidalgo Jimenez. According to the indictment, almost all of the men used the alias Eric Paltz.

None of the men could be reached for comment.

Investigative police in Costa Rica said that along with computers and files, six cars were seized from Budovsky's house in the wealthy suburb of Escazu: three Rolls Royce, two Jaguars and one Mercedes Benz.

THIRD PARTY GATEWAYS

Liberty Reserve's currency unit was called the "LR". Users opened accounts at Liberty Reserve giving only a name, address and date of birth that the company made no attempt to verify, according to the indictment.

Once a user had a Liberty Reserve account, he or she could use cash to purchase LRs from third-party exchange merchants, separate companies trading LRs with each other in bulk and charging fees to make the conversions between LRs and hard cash.

Liberty Reserve users could transfer the digital currency units to each other, to be redeemed in different parts of the world for cash using the exchange merchants.

The third-party exchange companies provided the gateway to more conventional payment systems.

According to information from Liberty Reserve's archived web pages, the company had relationships at one time with at least 35 different exchange companies, some of which transferred cash back and forth to customers using PayPal, Western Union, MoneyGram, credit cards including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and CitiBank Global Money Transfer.

PayPal said it has not allowed payments to be processed for Liberty Reserve for the last five years. Spokesmen for Western Union, MoneyGram, Visa, Mastercard and Citigroup did not respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for American Express said American Express sold Amex Bank to Standard Chartered in 2007.

The indictment said Liberty Reserve did not collect any banking or transaction information from the third-party exchange companies. It also let its users hide their Liberty Exchange account numbers when making transactions.

The U.S. is expected to seek extradition for the people arrested in Spain and Costa Rica. It was unclear when the two people arrested in Brooklyn, New York, would appear in court.

The Costa Rican prosecutor's office said Liberty Reserve had been operating illegally in Costa Rica since 2006. Budovsky, a Ukranian-born former American citizen, had already pleaded guilty to U.S. charges that he operated an illegal financial services firm out of New York. Officials said they suspected that Liberty Reserve relocated to Costa Rica from the United States after U.S. authorities began looking into its operations.

Costa Rica's investigative police said Budovsky operated five offices in the wealthy suburbs of Escazu and Santa Ana in the outskirts of the capital city. The companies identified by Costa Rican investigative police were called Silverhand Solutions & Technology, Worldwide E-Commerce Business, Grupo Lulu Limitada, Triton Group and Cyberfuel.com.

The U.S. Treasury Department's anti-money-laundering unit, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), issued guidance in March that labeled digital currency firms as money transmitters, thereby obliging them to put in place anti-money-laundering programs and register with FinCEN.

Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, a top exchange for Bitcoin, the best known virtual currency, failed to register with FinCEN earlier this month and had its U.S. dollar accounts seized by authorities.

Over the past week, a Bitcoin unit has traded at around $130, according to the website Bitcoincharts.com.

(Reporting by Emily Flitter in New York; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond, Joseph Ax, Peter Rudegeair and Matthew Goldstein in New York, Brett Wolf in St. Louis and Isabella Cota Schwarz in San Jose, Costa Rica, Martin de Sa'pinto in Zurich; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Tim Dobbyn, Jan Paschal and Will Waterman)

NEW YORK (AP) Creative writing was Rick Springfield's first love, and he's returning to it with his debut novel.

A Tuesday news release says the musician-actor will release "Magnificent Vibration" in May 2014 on the Simon & Schuster imprint Touchstone.

Springfield is best known as the multi-platinum "Jessie's Girl" singer and "General Hospital" star, but his memoir "Late, Late at Night" was a surprise New York Times best-seller. He said in the statement the experience "reminded me how much I love the craft."

Springfield's novel is about a tough-times protagonist who receives a 1-800 phone connection with God through a self-help book. The book comes during a busy period for the musician. He recently participated in Dave Grohl's "Sound City" documentary and album and appeared on "Californication" and "Hawaii Five-O."

___

Online:

http://rickspringfield.com

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan will ask a U.S. military court on Wednesday to rule he can represent himself at his trial this summer which could bring the death penalty on charges he killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage.

Jury selection in Hasan's military trial at Fort Hood was delayed until next week after he asked the judge, Colonel Tara Osborn, to let him fire his lawyers and represent himself. The trial is scheduled to start July 1.

Hasan is accused of opening fire on a group of soldiers who were preparing to deploy to Iraq in November 2009 in the worst shooting rampage on a U.S. military post. In addition to the 13 people who died, 32 others were wounded.

Two civilian Fort Hood police officers shot Hasan, ending the rampage and leaving the Army psychiatrist paralyzed from the chest down. He faces a possible death sentence if convicted of premeditated murder.

Osborn has little choice but to grant Hasan's request to represent himself under U.S. law, which could pose problems for prosecutors and create more avenues for appeal, the military law experts said. She is likely to appoint lawyers to assist Hasan.

"It is going to prolong everything and will make everything more difficult, all throughout the process," said Victor M. Hansen, a professor at the New England School of Law in Boston and a former Army defense attorney.

Military law experts said the move could make Hasan's court martial more challenging for prosecutors and painful for witnesses who may be questioned by the man accused of wounding them, or killing their family members.

"It is hard enough for the victim of an attempted murder or the family member of someone who has been murdered, to come into a courtroom and sit across the room from a man who they are convinced did this," said Geoffrey Corn, a retired lieutenant colonel and veteran Army prosecutor.

Osborn has sought to get the trial on track after delays caused by a debate over whether Hasan, who is a Muslim, should be required to shave his beard to comply with military rules. Osborn set the issue aside and Hasan has continued to appear in court with a full beard.

Hasan has indicated a willingness to plead guilty to the charges if prosecutors drop the death penalty. Under military law, he cannot plead guilty to a death penalty case.

Hasan has said little about what motivated the shootings, but an FBI-commissioned report in 2012 said he had exchanged emails with militant Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in the year before the attack, and witnesses said they heard him shout in Arabic "God is greatest" just before opening fire at Fort Hood.

Awlaki, a U.S. citizen born in New Mexico, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

(Editing by David Bailey, Cynthia Johnston and Andrew Hay)

SAN ANTONIO (AP) Warm weather and sunshine are helping the San Antonio area dry out after thunderstorms this weekend flooded area roads, rivers and creeks, killing three people who were swept away by rushing waters.

The National Weather Service on Monday discontinued a flood watch for the region. A flood warning did remain for the San Antonio River near Falls City, which is about 45 miles southeast of San Antonio.

The Texas Department of Transportation and other agencies reported Monday that only a few roads remained closed in San Antonio due to flooding.

The San Antonio Water System reported that two sewer lines were overwhelmed by the flooding, causing spills of more than 100,000 gallons. The utility said no adverse impacts had been reported from the spills.

By Yeganeh Torbati

DUBAI (Reuters) - A former Iranian nuclear negotiator running for president used his first television appearance of the campaign to reject accusations he had been too soft in talks with world powers.

The most prominent moderate candidate in an election dominated by hardliners, cleric Hassan Rohani, nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005, oversaw an agreement to suspend Iran's fledgling uranium enrichment-related activities.

Iran has since stepped up its nuclear program which many countries, particularly in the West, fear is aimed at acquiring a weapons capability, something Tehran strongly denies.

Hardliners see the nuclear program as a matter of national pride and any concession to outside pressure an affront to Iran's sovereign rights. The current nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, is campaigning for president on his record of giving no ground in talks.

Western powers are watching the June 14 election to see whether President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's successor will set a new tone in talks - several rounds of which in the last year have failed to defuse tensions over the nuclear program which Israel has said it could use military force to stop.

In a spirited exchange on state television on Monday, Rohani said allegations he had halted nuclear development were "a lie" and suggested his interviewer was "illiterate".

"It's good if you study history," a smiling Rohani, dressed in the traditional clerical garb, told the suited interviewer. "We suspended it? We mastered the (nuclear) technology!"

The 64-year-old argued the Islamic Republic had expanded uranium enrichment during his tenure while demonstrating the program's peaceful nature and preventing a U.S. attack.

"We didn't allow Iran to be attacked," he said, referring to the U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"They (the U.S.) imagined tomorrow or the day after, it would be Iran's turn."

TARNISHED AND HURT

Nuclear policy is ultimately decided by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and all candidates stress Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy and deny plans to build nuclear weapons.

Analysts say voters are more likely to decide on candidates based on how they would reinvigorate an economy suffering from high unemployment and inflation.

But the nuclear issue has been "used to discredit rivals" in the early days of the campaign, said Dina Esfandiary, an Iran analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Jalili's camp is trading on its hardline attitude to the nuclear program. In the last five years, Jalili, seen as rigidly devoted to Iran's Islamic revolutionary ideals, has overseen a hardening stance in talks with world powers.

"Our national interests and security were tarnished and hurt," said Ali Bagheri, Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator who is supporting Jalili's campaign, in a recent speech, referring to Rohani's tenure under reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

"The fate of that period was unhappy and God forbid it should be a period that we return to."

Several rounds of nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers - the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany - have failed to reach an agreement.

Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said on Tuesday the six powers intend to hold a new round of talks in July.

(Additional reporting by Justyna Pawlak in Brussels; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Jon Hemming)

NEW YORK (AP) Rebecca Hall, who plays a brilliant biologist in "Iron Man 3," will soon get to play a murderer onstage.

The Roundabout Theatre Company said Tuesday that Hall will star on Broadway in the first revival of "Machinal" since it made its debut 85 years ago.

Previews begin Dec. 20 at the American Airlines Theatre and opening night is Jan. 16.

Sophie Treadwell's play is inspired by the 1927 murder trial of Ruth Brown Snyder, who was executed after helping her lover kill her husband.

When it debuted on Broadway in 1928, the role of the lover was played by the then-unknown Clark Gable.

Hall, an English actress who earned a Golden Globe nomination for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," also appeared in Ben Affleck's "The Town" and on TV in "Parade's End."

NEW YORK (AP) Broadway got two pieces of bad news Tuesday: The total box office take dipped ever so slightly this past season and the number of ticket buyers dipped 6 percent. Both were blamed in part on Superstorm Sandy.

According to figures released by The Broadway League, Broadway shows yielded $1,138,734,331 or about $577,000 less than last season. Attendance fell from 12.33 million in the 2011-2012 season to 11.57 million this season.

The League linked the twin decreases to Hurricane Sandy, which darkened Broadway for four days in November and cost shows more than $8.5 million in lost revenue.

"The lost performances and the understandable slower return to Broadway by our tri-state area theatergoers contributed to the decline in both grosses and attendance," said Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the League, said in a statement. "Plus with early closings of some of our open-ended runs creating a loss in playing weeks, comparable to the decrease in attendance, there just wasn't time to recover."

Shows that came and went this season quickly include "Orphans," ''The Testament of Mary," ''Hands on a Hardbody," ''The Anarchist," ''Scandalous," ''Jekyll & Hyde" and "The Performers."

Broadway grosses and attendances have generally been on the increase year after year, as has the number of playing weeks. A 6 percent dip in playing weeks this season to 1,430 clearly hurt.

A total of 46 new shows opened during the season, which began May 28, 2012 and ended Sunday: 15 musicals, 26 plays and five special events or concerts. The 26 plays produced this season set a new record.

The season is ending with a big bang, however, with Tony Awards just around the corner. Newcomers "Cindarella," ''Kinky Boots," ''Lucky Guy," ''Matlida" and "Motown: The Musical" joined stalwarts "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," ''The Book of Mormon," ''Wicked" and "The Phantom of the Opera" to top $1 million for the week ending Sunday.

___

Online: http://www.BroadwayLeague.com

___

Follow Mark Kennedy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

By William James

LONDON (Reuters) - The government said on Tuesday it had secured billions of pounds of spending cuts at government ministries, but still faces an uphill struggle to agree further reductions equivalent to 80 percent of its 11.5 billion pound target.

Battling to reduce a big public deficit, Chancellor George Osborne said seven government departments had agreed to cut between 8 and 10 percent from their 2015/16 budgets as part of a government spending review due to be announced on June 26.

But finding the remaining cuts of around 9 billion pounds is likely to strain relations within a Conservative party already divided over Britain's membership of the European Union and gay marriage as ministers try to defend their own budgets.

Britain's Conservative-led government is cutting spending to try to rein in a 114.2 billion pound budget deficit in the face of calls from the International Monetary Fund to spend more now to fund investment and avoid crimping a nascent economic recovery.

Osborne said he had managed to get government departments such as the ministry of justice and the department of energy to agree to the spending cuts ahead of the deadline and that he thought talks to find more reductions were going "pretty well".

"I don't think anyone was expecting me to turn up at the end of May and say I've already agreed seven departments and the actual date when I've got to announce the whole thing is at the end of June," he said in an interview with the BBC.

Osborne on Tuesday ruled out further cuts to a welfare budget that has already undergone a radical overhaul and is a politically-sensitive topic for the left-leaning Liberal Democrats who are the junior partner in a coalition government.

Earlier this year, the government introduced a raft of new welfare cuts, prompting senior Liberal Democrats to try and block any further measures.

RINGFENCED BUDGETS

A decision to protect the education, health and international development budgets from cuts has put other ministers under more pressure to find savings.

Among those departments yet to declare how they will find the savings required are those with some of the biggest budgets such as defence, business and the home office (interior ministry), as well as the body that funds local governments.

Following the killing of a British soldier in London at the hands of two suspected Islamist militants, interior minister Theresa May has said the budget for counter-terrorism police spending should be protected.

Defence secretary Philip Hammond has also publicly resisted a reduction to his 34 billion pound budget, saying significant further cuts would erode Britain's military capability.

The opposition Labour party has been openly critical of the government's austerity strategy and condemned the scale of the cuts the government is targeting.

"(Osborne) seems set to spend the next two years sticking to policies that are badly failing on living standards, growth and even deficit reduction," said Chris Leslie, Labour's spokesman on financial affairs.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas and Andrew Osborn; Writing by William James and William Schomberg; Editing by Catherine Evans)

LOS ANGELES (AP) U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer wants the Justice Department to investigate if California utility executives deceived federal regulators about an equipment swap at the San Onofre nuclear power plant that eventually led to a radiation leak, The Associated Press has learned.

The California Democrat obtained a 2004 internal letter written by a senior Southern California Edison executive that she said "leads me to believe that Edison intentionally misled the public and regulators" to avoid a potentially long and costly review of four replacement steam generators before they went into service.

The twin-domed plant between Los Angeles and San Diego hasn't produced electricity since January 2012, after a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusually rapid wear inside hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water in the nearly new generators.

The letter was written to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which manufactured the generators that now sit idle in a plant that once produced power for 1.4 million households.

Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement Monday that she is providing the correspondence to the Justice Department and other federal and state officials to determine if Edison "engaged in willful wrongdoing."

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Eliot Brenner declined comment.

An Edison statement said the letter reflected part of the company's effort to ensure flaws were not inadvertently introduced into the generator design. It said Edison took numerous steps to ensure that Mitsubishi addressed the concerns.

"These documents demonstrate the type of careful oversight that SCE exercised during the replacement steam generator project and also served to establish our expectations of MHI," said Pete Dietrich, SCE senior vice president and chief nuclear officer.

"SCE's own oversight ... complied with industry standards and best practices," Dietrich added. "SCE would never, and did not, install steam generators that it believed would impact public safety or impair reliability."

Mitsubishi did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.

The letter goes to a central issue at San Onofre, where Edison is seeking federal permission to restart the Unit 2 reactor and run it at reduced power in an effort to halt tube damage.

The replacement generators were different than the originals they were far heavier and hundreds of additional tubes were added as part of design changes, for example. Edison installed the equipment in a $670 million overhaul in 2009 and 2010 without an extended NRC review after concluding the new machines met a federal test to qualify as largely the same as the ones they replaced, requiring little or no changes to safety systems or components in the plant.

Such equipment swaps, sometimes referred to as "like-for-like" replacements, are common in the industry.

But the Nov. 30, 2004 letter from SCE Vice President Dwight E. Nunn states that "although the old and new steam generators will be similar in many respects they aren't like-for-like replacements."

Boxer's office said the letter, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press, reveals "evidence of misrepresentation" since it suggests the company knew the replacements didn't meet the "like-for-like" benchmark Edison used to put them in use.

Anti-nuclear activists trying to block the restart have long argued that Edison duped the NRC about extensive design changes to avoid a lengthy, trial-like review, known as a license amendment, that in some cases can take up to two years to complete.

Boxer said the letter shows "Edison knew they were not proceeding with a simple 'like-for-like' replacement as they later claimed."

It's not clear is what, if any, design changes were made after Nunn's 2004 letter.

The Edison statement Monday said the differences between the original and replacement generators "were determined as being insufficient" to trigger a longer license amendment proceeding.

The letter notes the generators will be among the largest ever built for operation in the U.S., and it also provides an eerie warning about the very problems that later sidelined the plant.

Gradual wear is common in steam generator tubing, but the rate of erosion at San Onofre alarmed officials since the equipment is relatively new. Federal investigators last year concluded that a botched computer analysis resulted in design flaws that were largely to blame for the unusual tube wear.

"Success in developing a new and larger steam generator design requires a full understanding of the risks inherent in this process," Nunn said in the letter.

Nunn said designing supports for the tubes would be tricky since larger generators appear more susceptible to tube wear, and added that he was "concerned that there is the potential that design flaws could be inadvertently introduced into the steam generator design that will lead to unacceptable consequences," including tube damage.

"This would be a disastrous outcome for both of us," he said.

Costs for the long-running shutdown have topped $553 million.

As Edison pushes for a restart, the company is facing a thicket of regulatory obstacles that include a separate state investigation into who should pay for the trouble customers or shareholders. Separately, an NRC licensing board has sided with environmentalists who have called for a license-amendment hearing on the plan to restart the plant, a decision that could be appealed.

The NRC has previously disclosed that its Office of Investigations and Office of the Inspector General are conducting probes into "allegations of willful wrongdoing," but provided no details.

Last month, SCE's parent, Edison International, raised the possibility of retiring the plant if it can't get one reactor running later this year. With questions about whether the plant can restart and who picks up the tab, "there is a practical limit to how much we can absorb of that risk," Edison Chairman Ted Craver told Wall Street analysts.

The four steam generators at San Onofre two per reactor, each with 9,727 alloy tubes function something like a car radiator, which controls heat in the vehicle's engine. The generator tubes circulate hot, radioactive water from the reactors, which is used to make steam to turn turbines that produce electricity.

Overall, investigators found wear from friction and vibration in 15,000 places, in varying degrees, in 3,401 tubes inside the four replacement generators.

___

Follow Michael R. Blood at http://twitter.com/MichaelRBloodAP

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) Chelsea Clinton said Tuesday she plans to become increasingly involved in the international health projects of her father's foundation and to speak out for gay rights.

The only child of former U.S. President Bill Clinton told The Associated Press during a visit to Malaysia that her focus will be on the Clinton Foundation's work, especially "related to health, not just in the United States but also around the world."

Clinton said on the sidelines of a women's conference in Malaysia's main city that she hopes to return to Southeast Asia, specifically Myanmar, where the foundation will work with authorities to distribute medicine and health products, including HIV drugs and child vaccines, at cheaper prices.

Clinton visited Myanmar earlier this week at the start of initiative to provide water purification packets to areas with unsafe water supplies. Her mother, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, made a groundbreaking visit to Myanmar in 2011 and helped nudge an elected government toward democratic reforms.

"I hope to go back soon" to Myanmar, Clinton said. "My father and my husband are quite jealous now because my mother and I both have been to the country, and they have not."

From Malaysia, Clinton travels to Cambodia to launch an effort to slash HIV-related infections and deaths.

"My goal is always to do as much as I can in whatever area I'm working in," she said.

She added that besides the Clinton Foundation's initiatives, she was committed to supporting gay rights, including marriage equality.

"It just seems so fundamental to me. I'm able to marry the person I wanted to marry," Clinton said. "That's the fundamental human imperative. Those of us who have been lucky enough should expand these rights to others."

Clinton often tweets messages supportive of gay rights. Earlier this month, she called it "progress" when France's new gay marriage law came into force and urged her followers to help build "an equitable world for all" while marking International Day Against Homophobia.

Clinton laughed off a question about whether all the work would leave her time to start a family with her husband.

"My mother asks me that all the time, and anything my mother asks me is fair game," she said.

__

Associated Press writer Sean Yoong contributed to this report.

CANNES, France (AP) "Look at these people, this wildlife."

As the partying journalist of Paolo Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty," Toni Servillo was surveying Rome's colorful nightlife, but he might as well have been contemplating the Cannes Film Festival. The 66th edition of the Cote d'Azur extravaganza drew to a close Sunday, awarding the sensual, heartbreaking lesbian romance "Blue is the Warmest Color: The Life of Adele" the festival's top honor, the Palme d'Or.

The Cannes Film Festivale is a 12-day circus of perpetual red-carpet flashbulbs, beachside soirees and, yes, a feast of some of the finest, wildest movies the world has to offer. The most exotic creatures weren't the high-heeled ones parading the Croisette, they were the ones gracing Cannes' pristine movie screens.

This year, the festival was a particularly captivating coterie of rare birds. There was Tilda Swinton as a white-haired, centuries-old vampire (Jim Jarmusch's "Only Lovers Left Alive"); Joaquin Phoenix as a 1920s pimp, sticking out his jaw like Marlon Brando (James Gray's "The Immigrant"); a sequin-covered Michael Douglas as Liberace (Steven Soderbergh's "Behind the Candelabra"); a battered and bloodied, but still cool Ryan Gosling (Nicolas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives"); and the disabled but acrobatic dancer Souleymane Deme (Mahamat-Saleh Harouns "Grigris").

There was literal wildlife, too, including a cat named Hercules (the Coen brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis"), a vanishing giraffe ("The Great Beauty") and an unfortunate pooch caught up in Mexico's brutal drug war (Amat Escalante's "Heli"). Cannes, alas, is a dog eat dog world.

A strong, deep slate of films in competition left some mystery before Steven Spielberg's jury named "The Life of Adele" tops of the festival. The three-hour coming-of-age tale, by Tunisian-born director Abdellatif Kechiche, emerged as a landmark film not for its lengthy, graphic sex scenes, but for its tender intimacy. It won the Palme on the same day thousands marched in Paris protesting France's recent legalization of gay marriage.

The global stage of Cannes immediately catapults Kechiche to greater international renown, inducting him into the prestigious group of Palme d'Or winners, from Francis Ford Coppola to Terrence Malick.

But this year's festival boasted many breakout stars, including the two daring actresses of "Life of Adele," Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux, who, in a twist, also shared in the Palme d'Or. As a bitter, sarcastic 1960s folk singer in "Llewyn Davis," newcomer Oscar Isaac also shined in Cannes' spotlight.

Familiar faces turned in some of their best work including Berenice Bejo, as a single mother juggling a new man and an old one in Asghar Farhadi's shifting domestic drama "The Past"; Kristin Stewart Thomas, as Lady Macbeth meets Donatella Versace in the stylish Bangkok noir "Only God Forgives"; and Bruce Dern, as a gruff, aging father in Alexander Payne's black-and-white Midwest road trip "Nebraska."

Screenings at Cannes begin with the festival intro of red steps ascending from the sea up to the heavens, but for the first half of Cannes, it felt as though the festival was stuck underwater. Constant rains dampened the French Riviera atmosphere in the early days, and the films though full of intriguing entries didn't quite catch until the Coens premiered their melancholy story of a frustrated artist passed over by history.

Reality also threatened to overshadow the movies. On the same night as the premiere of Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring," a film about Los Angeles teenagers who rob the houses of celebrities, news broke that $1 million worth of jewelry had been stolen in a Cannes hotel. Never mind that its value turned out to be significantly less: The world had already conjured cinematic images of Cary Grant nimbly tiptoeing on Riviera rooftops.

Hollywood's noisiest intruder was "Catching Fire," the "Hunger Games" sequel that used Cannes' platform to stir up worldwide fervor for the next installment of the Jennifer Lawrence blockbuster.

American films including those by the Coens, Payne, Jarmusch, Soderbergh and Gray were among some of the best entries at the festival. "Inside Llewyn Davis," ''Nebraska" and perhaps the Ellis Island melodrama "The Immigrant" will likely be players in this fall's Oscar season.

Soderbergh's "Behind the Candelabra" marks the director's final film, at least for a time, as he's withdrawing from filmmaking. Soderbergh, whose film was broadcast on HBO, is planning to work more in television an arena many directors discussed in Cannes, claiming its quality and cultural relevance now equals or even surpasses movies.

While that may be true in many parts of the world, it isn't in Cannes. At the annual glamour fest, the big screen and all its varied vitality still reigns supreme.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle

BALTIMORE (AP) For the second time this year, a fire at sea has aborted a cruise ship. This time, aboard Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas and the ship's 2,200 passengers were expected back in Baltimore on Tuesday after being flown on charter flights from the Bahamas.

The fire that began at 2:50 a.m. Monday was extinguished about two hours later with no injuries reported. A cause wasn't immediately known but the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board planned to investigate.

The ship, which left Baltimore on Friday for a seven-night cruise, was headed originally to CocoCay, Bahamas. Royal Caribbean said the ship never lost power and was able to sail into port in Freeport, Bahamas, Monday afternoon. The ship launched in 1996 and was refurbished last year.

Royal Caribbean said on its website and through social media that executives met with passengers in port and that the cruise line was arranging flights for all 2,224 guests. Also, passengers will get a full refund of their fare and a certificate for a future cruise.

Aboard ship, the captain announced that passengers needed to go to their muster stations, said passenger Mark J. Ormesher in an email to The Associated Press. Immediately after, his room attendant knocked on the door and told him and his girlfriend to grab their flotation devices. The attendant said it wasn't a drill.

Ormesher, a native of England, who lives in Manassas, Va., said he and his girlfriend smelled acrid smoke as they went to their muster station, the ship's casino. The crew quickly provided instruction.

"This encouraged calm amongst the passengers," he said. Passengers were required to remain at their stations for four hours, he said, and the captain "provided us as much information as we needed to stay safe."

Ormesher, who is 25 and on his first cruise, said the air conditioner had been shut off, and as the hours passed and the ship got hot, bottled water was distributed. The crew and passengers remained calm, and helped those who needed it. Crying babies were given formula and held while their parents used the bathrooms.

Photos show a substantial area of the stern burned on several decks of the ship the length of about three football fields.

Royal Caribbean said all guests and 796 crew were safe and accounted for. Royal Caribbean spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez said in an email that the company was arranging 11 different charter flights.

The company in a statement on its website said it is "deeply sorry for this unexpected development in our guests' vacation. We understand that this may have been a very stressful time for them. We appreciate their patience and cooperation in dealing with this unfortunate situation."

Carnival Corp. also had trouble with fire aboard ship earlier this year.

The 900-foot Triumph was disabled during a February cruise by an engine room fire in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving thousands of passengers to endure cold food, unsanitary conditions and power outages while the ship was towed to Mobile, Ala. It remained there for repairs until early May when it headed back to sea under its own power.

On the Royal Caribbean ship, after passengers were allowed to leave their stations, Ormesher said he saw water on the outside of deck 5 and in the hallways. The mooring lines were destroyed he said; crew members brought new lines from storage.

The damage at the rear of the ship "looks bad," Ormesher said; burned out equipment was visible.

Martinez said in a news release that a cruise scheduled aboard the Grandeur of the Seas for May 31 has been canceled so the ship can be repaired.

NEW YORK (AP) Daft Punk has set another record on Spotify.

The music service said Monday that the electronic duo's new album, "Random Access Memories," had the biggest number of streams in its first week in the United States. Spotify wouldn't release the number of streams, but Daft Punk beat the 8 million streams Mumford & Sons set with "Babel" last year.

"Random Access Memories" was released last week and is the fourth album from the Grammy-winning French group.

Daft Punk also set a Spotify record last month when its song "Get Lucky" had the biggest streaming day for a single track in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Since its debut, "Get Lucky" has been streamed more than 27 million times.

Spotify launched in 2008.

___

Online:

Daft Punk: http://www.daftpunk.com/

Spotify: http://www.spotify.com/

ESCONDIDO, Calif. (AP) Less than two weeks after Angelina Jolie revealed she'd had a double mastectomy to avoid breast cancer, her aunt died from the disease Sunday.

Debbie Martin died at age 61 at a hospital in Escondido, Calif., near San Diego, her husband, Ron Martin, told The Associated Press.

Debbie Martin was the younger sister of Jolie's mother, Marcheline Bertrand, whose own death from ovarian cancer in 2007 inspired the surgery that Jolie described in a May 14 op-ed in the New York Times.

According to her husband, Debbie Martin had the same defective BRCA1 gene that Jolie does, but didn't know it until after her 2004 cancer diagnosis.

"Had we known, we certainly would have done exactly what Angelina did," Ron Martin said in a phone interview.

Debbie Martin's death was first reported by E! News.

Ron Martin said after getting breast cancer, Debbie Martin had her ovaries removed preventively because she was also at very high genetic risk for ovarian cancer, which has killed several women in her family.

The 37-year-old Jolie said in her op-ed that her doctors estimated that she had a 50 percent risk of getting ovarian cancer but an 87 percent risk of breast cancer.

She had her breasts removed first, reducing her likelihood to a mere 5 percent.

She described the three-step surgical process in detail in the op-ed "because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience."

The story, a surprise to most save those closest to Jolie, spurred a broad discussion of genetic testing and pre-emptive surgery.

A message left with representatives seeking comment from Jolie was not immediately returned.

SANTIAGO/BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Chilean and Argentine authorities on Monday declared a red alert and ordered the mandatory evacuation of a 25-km (15.5-mile) radius around the active Copahue volcano, which straddles the border between the two Andean nations.

The volcano - located some 500 km (310 miles) south of capital Santiago, between Chile's Bio Bio region and Argentina's Neuquen province - has seen increasing seismic activity in recent weeks but has not erupted, Chilean authorities said.

"This doesn't necessarily mean the volcano will start erupting. But according to the Sernageomin (National Geological and Mining Service), the volcano is now in a process that could culminate in an eruption, for that reason we've issued a red alert and the evacuation," Chilean Interior Minister Andres Chadwick told a nationally televised news conference.

Authorities estimated that some 2,240 people will be evacuated in Chile.

In Argentina's Neuquen province, authorities also declared a "red alert," and ordered the evacuation of some 900 people in tourist-haven Caviahue-Copahue. The Argentine municipality had previously ordered the cancellation of school classes.

Close to the Chilean side of the volcano, in Bio Bio region, power generator Endesa Chile operates the Ralco and Pangue hydroelectric dams, which have not been affected by the evacuation order.

Endesa Chile is monitoring the situation, a company source told Reuters. Water levels at the dams are at technical lows, which would avoid the possible need to open the floodgates, and the dams' walls are designed to withstand earthquakes, the source said.

In mid-2011, ash from a volcano in Chile's Puyehue-Cordon Caulle chain that erupted after decades of lying dormant forced the sporadic cancellation of hundreds of flights, especially in neighboring Argentina and Uruguay.

(Reporting by Santiago and Buenos Aires newsrooms; Additional reporting Fabian Cambero and Felipe Iturrieta; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Sandra Maler)