U.N. chief to contact Libyan leaders over AIDS trial

U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan says he intends to contact Libyan officials "at a high level" regarding the death sentences handed to five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of intentionally infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV. Annan said he will "see what can be done to help" the medics, but he refused to elaborate on specifics of what his message to the Libyans would be. Western governments and human rights groups have condemned last week's verdicts and sentences in Libya, saying they were based on false confessions obtained through torture and intended to deflect attention away from unsanitary hospital practices. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called the verdicts and sentences "unacceptable."