A face-off begins this coming week among the world's major powers over whether to impose new economic sanctions to pressure Iran into suspending its nuclear-fuel program.

Weeks of shadow diplomacy will start to gel on Thursday, when the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, meets in Vienna to debate the IAEA's latest report on Iranian cooperation with inspections of its fuel program. Iran says its program is purely civilian. The U.S. and its European allies believe it is for weapons.

The positions of the U.N.'s big powers are already well staked out. The U.S., Britain and France want the U.N. Security Council to impose a third round of much tougher sanctions on Iran. China and Russia are reluctant. Twice already, when Iran failed to meet suspension deadlines, the Security Council has worked out a middle road of relatively low-impact sanctions. This time, as an end-of-month deadline for Iran to suspend enrichment approaches, reaching agreement is likely to be harder.

One reason is that the Security Council's strategy has been questioned lately. That strategy is to pressure Iran to suspend its fuel program, so it can't develop the know-how to make fuel for nuclear warheads even as it negotiates guarantees of the fuel program's peaceful nature. The IAEA's chief, Mohammed ElBaradei, in May said the strategy had become pointless. Iran already has the know-how, he said.

The Egyptian-born diplomat then made his own parallel proposals to Tehran, asking the Iranians to come clean on questions about how its decades-old covert nuclear program was developed. Mr. ElBaradei circulated his progress report on that effort Thursday. It said the Iranians are being more transparent but are still holding back some information and have accelerated their enrichment program.

The common international front on Iran, always shaky, shows growing stress. Russia and China have been angered by U.S. saber-rattling and unilateral sanctions, as well as by threats from France and Britain that Europe could impose unilateral sanctions on Iran's oil and finance industries if the Security Council doesn't act. That Security Council vote is scheduled for December.

China Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, visiting Tehran earlier this past week, said further sanctions would do "no good." Russian media and trade publications have widely reported that Iran has begun talks to buy more than 200 Russian SU-30 fighter jets and 40 Chinese J-10 aircraft to modernize its obsolete air force. Iran has neither confirmed nor denied the talks. China this past week scuttled a meeting on Iran of senior diplomats from the major powers, scheduled for Monday in Brussels, citing a schedule conflict, according to diplomats familiar with the matter.

"There has been dragging of feet by the Chinese" on a new council resolution, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters in New York Thursday, warning Beijing that if it blocked further U.N. sanctions, it would be responsible for the failure of diplomacy to rein in Iran's nuclear program.

Awash in oil revenue, Iran appears increasingly confident it can outlast the Western pressure. Tehran didn't even reply to an offer from European Union foreign-policy representative Javier Solana, who negotiates with Iran on behalf of the EU and the Security Council's permanent members, to hold talks this coming week ahead of the next suspension deadline.

Despite an analysts' upgrade, shares of Virgin Mobile USA Inc. fell Friday to their lowest point since the company's recent trading debut after the company said its third-quarter loss widened as operating expenses rose.

The wireless service provider's shares fell $1.54, or 14.4 percent, to $9.19 Friday. Earlier, the shares traded as low as $8.07.

Virgin Mobile said late Thursday that its third-quarter loss widened to $7.3 million, compared with a loss of $5.1 million in the year-ago quarter.

The company said its pro-forma loss totaled 15 cents per share, compared with a loss of 10 cents per share in the year-ago period.

Revenue rose year over year to $319.5 million from $271 million, as an increase in service revenue overshadowed a decline in equipment sales.

In a note to clients Friday, Stanford Group Company analyst Michael Gary Nelson upgraded the stock to "Hold" from "Sell," saying challenges the company faces -- such as increasing competition -- are well balanced with opportunities for raising shareholder value.

The analyst called Virgin Mobile's third-quarter results "mixed" and its fourth-quarter outlook for between 350,000 and 400,000 net customer additions "weak." But he also said its guidance for 2008 EBITDA -- or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- of between $155 million and $175 million is strong.

With oil prices surging and U.S. stock prices slumping, chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s sale of an 8.1 percent stake to the Abu Dhabi government's investment arm represents the latest plunge by a wealthy Middle Eastern nation into a troubled U.S. corporation.

It also raises fresh questions about the appropriateness of Middle Eastern firms owning large chunks of U.S. businesses that specialize in advanced technologies.

Sunnyvale-based AMD, the world's No. 2 microprocessor maker, needs the $622 million investment from the Mubadala Development Company to help lift the company out of a deep financial slump.

AMD has lost more than $1.6 billion so far this year, and has just $1.5 billion in cash on hand as it works to pay down $5.3 billion in debt. The financial woes have caused AMD's stock to fall more than 35 percent since the start of the year, a slide that has wiped out nearly $4 billion in shareholder wealth.

The infusion, announced Friday, is a necessary jolt for AMD is it hunts for money to fund its counteroffensive against Intel Corp., the world's largest chip maker, and amid a huge spike in investments in U.S. companies from Middle Eastern nations.

Middle Eastern investments in U.S. companies has increased more than fivefold in 2007, leaping from $4.5 billion on 32 deals last year to nearly $25 billion on 42 deals so far this year, according to data compiled by Thomson Financial.

The money invested in the past two years is more than the entire total invested from 1990 to 2005, according to the latest Thomson data. During that period, $24.8 billion in investments were made in 258 deals.

Oil-rich countries have been enriched further in recent months by a run-up in the price of a barrel of oil, which has been hovering in the $90 range while many U.S. stocks continue to suffer from the housing and lending morass that's led some banks to absorb billions of dollars in losses.

The biggest deal so far this year involving Middle Eastern firms was General Electric Co.'s $11.6 billion sale of its plastics division, completed in August, to petrochemicals manufacturer Saudi Basic Industries Corp., a public company based in Riyadh that is 70-pecent owned by the Saudi Arabian government.

Firms based in the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven oil-rich states, have invested nearly $10 billion in real estate, financial, power generation and other types of companies in the United States.

Earlier this year, Mubadala bought a 7.5 percent stake in the management operations of private-equity firm Carlyle Group for $1.35 billion, and this week unveiled a partnership with military contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. to collaborate on aerospace and aviation technologies.

The deal with AMD makes the Abu Dhabi government-run investment fund AMD's third-largest shareholder, according to AMD's latest regulatory filings, a development that AMD vows will not trigger a review by the U.S. government because it's a minority investment and Mubadala will not get a board seat.

However, some experts doubt that claim, citing the sensitivity of AMD's technology, which besides being used widely in consumer personal computers and corporate servers is also used in Defense Department computers and other government machinery.

John Reynolds, an attorney at Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington, said the transaction could face scrutiny by Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS, a 12-member panel headed by the Treasury Department, because the U.S. government is very interested in acquisitions by government-run investment funds, known as sovereign wealth funds, such as Mubadala.

China, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern and Asian countries have set up such funds, which control an estimated $2.5 trillion in assets.

In addition, if AMD has government contracts for classified work, interest from CFIUS and Congress "is apt to be considerable, even if the investment is non-controlling," Reynolds said.

Generally, passive investments of less than 10 percent of a company's shares do not trigger review by CFIUS. But that is not a hard-and-fast rule, Reynolds said, and an ownership stake below 10 percent is not automatically shielded from review.

The product -- once promoted as increasing eyelash growth -- had been sold and distributed by San Jose, California-based Jan Marini Skin Research, Inc, which accused the FDA of unfairly singling it out.

The FDA said it considered Age Intervention Eyelash "adulterated" and potentially dangerous, notably for users with elevated pressure inside the eye.

The product contains bimatoprost, an active ingredient in an FDA-approved drug to treat this condition.

For patients on the prescription drug, using Age Intervention Eyelash may boost the risk of optic nerve damage "because the extra dose of bimatoprost may decrease the prescription drug's effectiveness," the FDA said.

Jan Marini, the company's president and chief executive, said the product at issue had been in its warehouse since September 2006, when California public health authorities "embargoed" it at FDA request.

The company added in a statement it had offered to destroy the product, "but the FDA recently informed JMSR that it preferred to seize the product so that it could issue a press release announcing the seizure."

"We have been unfairly singled out," Marini said in a telephone interview. "Other companies use the same ingredient and we're not aware of any action that has been taken against them." 

The court also said the administration failed to include in the new rules heavier trucks driven as commuter vehicles, among several other deficiencies found.

Judge Betty Fletcher wrote that the administration "cannot put a thumb on the scale by undervaluing the benefits and overvaluing the costs of more stringent standards."

Charles Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said the administration was in the process of reviewing the decision. "We will consider all of our options," he said.

California and 10 other states, two cities and four environmental groups sued the administration after it announced the new fuel economy standards last year.

"It's a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration and its failed energy policy," California Attorney General Jerry Brown said.

The court ordered the administration to draw up new rules as soon as possible, but automakers complained Thursday they're already deep into developing light trucks through 2011 based on the new standards.

"Any further changes to the program would only delay the progress that manufacturers have made toward increasing fleet-wide fuel economy," said Dave McCurdy, president and chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. McCurdy said the industry is dedicated to developing more fuel efficient automobiles, "but adequate lead time is necessary in order to fully integrate these technologies into the marketplace."

Former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced to much fanfare the new rules in March 2006, proclaiming they were the "most ambitious fuel economy goals" yet for SUVs and their ilk. Mineta called the plan "pragmatic," balancing fuel conservation against auto industry costs and jobs.

The standards required most passenger trucks to boost fuel economy from 22.5 mpg in 2008 to at least 23.5 mpg by 2010. Passenger cars are required to meet a 27.5 mpg average.

"The idea of raising vehicle efficiency 1 mile per gallon is pathetic and shocking," said Brown, who along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is suing the Bush administration over its refusal to act on California's fuel economy plan for cars in the state.

The court ordered the White House to examine why it continues to consider light trucks differently than cars. Regulators made a distinction between cars and light trucks decades ago when most trucks were used for commercial purposes.

NHTSA had argued that it considered the intent of the manufacturer in making light trucks, rather than their actual highway use, in developing the new fuel standards.

"But this overlooks the fact that many light trucks today are manufactured primarily for transporting passengers," Fletcher wrote for the three-judge panel.

Fletcher also wrote that the administration failed to consider the benefit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"It did, however, include an analysis of the employment and sales impacts of more stringent standards on manufacturers," Fletcher wrote.

The court also took the administration to task for refusing to include in the new standards trucks weighing more than 8,500 pounds, a class that includes the Hummer H2, Ford F250 and other popular large vehicles.

The court ordered NHTSA to develop fuel standards for these large trucks or give a better reason than the agency's argument that it has never regulated those large trucks and that more testing needs to be done.

"This historic ruling vindicates our fight against fuel economy standards that are a complete sham and a gift to the auto industry," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who also joined the lawsuit.

Along with California and Connecticut, plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed last year include Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York City, the District of Columbia and several environmental groups.

The state Attorney General Bill McCollum's office said it would not challenge the court's decision.

Vicki Rios-Martinez, the victim's mother, was unhappy with the court ruling.

"This is like 16 years ago. Today was the same kind of emotions, the same kind of chaos, the same kind of roller coaster ride," she said. "The system has disappointed us over and over and over again."

Schwab was sentenced to death for the murder of 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez.

In March 1991, the month Schwab was released from prison on a sexual assault sentence, a newspaper published a picture of Junny for winning a kite contest.

He gained the confidence of Junny's family, claiming he was with the newspaper and was writing an article on the boy.

On April 18, he called Junny's school and pretended to be Junny's father and asked that the boy meet him after school. Two days later, Schwab called his aunt in Ohio and claimed that someone named Donald had made him kidnap and rape the boy.

He was later arrested and told police where he left Junny's body — in a footlocker in a rural part of Brevard County.

Schwab's execution was to be the first in Florida since the botched execution of Angel Diaz on Dec. 13. It took 34 minutes for Diaz to die — twice as long as normal — because the guards pushed the needles through his veins.