Nearly 3 million lives have been saved by HIV/AIDS treatment but scare resources are being misspent and stigma is still keeping the most vulnerable from seeking help, according to a new book by researchers commissioned by the U.N.

The failings are particularly worrying at a time when worldwide recession and donor fatigue are hurting spending on AIDS, the researchers say.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told U.S. diplomats in 2009 that neighboring Iran and Syria were providing weapons to insurgent groups within Iraq, a leaked document showed Thursday.

Maliki's comments to then-U.S. ambassador to Baghdad Christopher Hill came in the midst of a year-long diplomatic row with Damascus that prompted both Iraq and Syria to withdraw their respective ambassadors, while U.S. officials have long alleged that Iran backs militia groups operating inside Iraq.

Israel's prime minister has said Iran wants to take advantage of the chaos in Egypt to create "another Gaza" there and warned that Islamic parties have already taken over power by democratic means in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza.

Speaking before the Israeli parliament on Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu said he expects any new government in Egypt to honor its three-decade-long peace agreement with Israel.

Publication has been moved up for a book by Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel peace laureate and Egyptian opposition leader.

ElBaradei's "The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times," will come out April 26, not in June, as originally scheduled.

Yemen's president has told parliament he will not seek another term in office or hand power to his son — an apparent reaction to protests in his own country that have been inspired by Tunisia's revolt and the turmoil in Egypt.

The U.S.-allied Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for nearly 32 years, spoke Wednesday to lawmakers in both houses of the assembly.

Syrians are organizing campaigns on Facebook and Twitter that call for a "day of rage" in Damascus this week, taking inspiration from Egypt and Tunisia in using social networking sites to rally their followers for sweeping political reforms.

Like Egypt and Tunisia, Syria suffers from corruption, poverty and unemployment. All three nations have seen subsidy cuts on staples like bread and oil. Syria's authoritarian president has resisted calls for political freedoms and jailed critics of his regime.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak pledged on Tuesday that he would not stand for re-election in September, in an address to the nation that came after eight days of anti-government demonstrations.

"In all sincerity, regardless of the current circumstances, I never intended to be a candidate for another term," he said.

Fernando Torres was sold from Liverpool to Chelsea on Monday for a British record transfer fee, said to be 50 million pounds ($79.5 million).

Monday's deal is soccer's third-most expensive transfer, exceeded by Real Madrid's 2009 purchases of Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United for 80 million pounds ($131 million) and Kaka from AC Milan for 65 million euros ($92 million). It will be a similar figure to that received by Inter Milan when the Italian team sold Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Barcelona the same year, a deal that sent Samuel Eto'o to Inter.

A section of the brain involved in memory grew in size in older people who regularly took brisk walks for a year, researchers reported Monday.

The new study reinforces previous findings that aerobic exercise seems to reduce brain atrophy in early-stage Alzheimer's patients, and that walking leads to slight improvement on mental tests among older people with memory problems.

The last of Egypt's main Internet service providers, the Noor Group, has gone dark.

The Noor Group had remained online even after Egypt's four main Internet providers — Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr — abruptly stopped shuttling Internet traffic into and out of the country Friday morning.