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Handset management software firm Mformation Technologies said on Friday it has sued BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, claiming patent infringement.

New Jersey-based Mformation claims RIM has infringed two of its patents by making and selling the BlackBerry and the BlackBerry’s management software. It did not specify what remedies it is seeking.

“After refusing to license Mformation’s disclosed systems and software, RIM modified its BlackBerry software to include Mformation’s patented systems and methods of remote management,” Mformation said.

RIM was not immediately available for comment.

A bomb planted near a Baghdad mosque killed three Shiite worshippers as they were leaving Friday prayers, Iraqi officials said, as Sunni and Shiite preachers condemned a draft security pact with the United States.

Police and health officials said seven people were wounded in the blast, which occurred in the primarily Shiite neighborhood of Shaab of north Baghdad.

Maj. Mark Cheadle, a U.S. military spokesman, said the bomb went off across the street from the mosque. He said three civilians were wounded but none died in the attack, which he blamed on Shiite extremists

Iraqi police and hospital officials gave the higher death toll but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information. Such conflicting casualty tolls are common in Iraq.

Throughout the country, mosque preachers used the weekly prayer services to speak out against the draft security agreement, which would allow U.S. troops to remain in Iraq until at least the end of 2011.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is preparing to submit the draft to parliament for final approval — which U.S. officials believe is by no means certain.

In Najaf, an aide to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told worshippers that the Sadrist movement would continue to oppose the deal “whatever the concessions that the government claims to have gotten.”

The aide, Sheik Assad al-Nasseri, spoke one day before the Sadrists planned demonstration in Baghdad to drum up opposition to the deal.

In Baghdad, Sunni cleric Abdul-Sattar Abdul-Jabar said the agreement is “more dangerous than the occupation” and demanded the government refuse to sign it. He called for a referendum to allow voters to decide on the deal.

At another mosque, Shiite cleric Sadralddin al-Qubanji said the talks had taken place in secret and Iraqis were unaware of the details. He said the deal “might be negative or positive” and that the country stood at a “momentous turning point” in its history.

“There is no national unanimity about it,” al-Qubanji said. “We cannot sign an agreement with secret terms.”

Al-Maliki has said there are no secret parts although the government has not published the full text in Iraqi media.

Also Friday, Muslim clerics spoke of the plight of Christians in the northern city of Mosul, where thousands have fled amid attacks by suspected Sunni insurgents.

The recent series of killings, widely blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq, have occurred as the Christian leaders stepped up lobbying efforts to ensure its representation in upcoming provincial elections in the primarily Islamic country.

Al-Qubanji said he disapproved of the attacks in “letter and spirit,” adding that the violence represented a “malicious scheme against Christians and all Iraqis.”

Islamic extremists have frequently targeted Christians and other religious minorities since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, forcing tens of thousands to flee Iraq.

However, attacks declined as areas became more secure after a U.S. troop buildup, a U.S.-funded Sunni revolt against al-Qaida and a Shiite militia cease-fire.

An Anchorage judge has ordered Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to preserve e-mails from private accounts she has used to conduct state business.

Superior Court Judge Craig Stowers on Friday also ordered Alaska’s attorney general to recover messages from a Yahoo.com account of Palin’s that was breached by hackers last month.

That break-in prompted Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign to order closed at least one additional private account Palin maintained.

The judge issued the orders at the request of Andree McLeod, an Anchorage activist whose pursuit of Palin’s e-mails revealed that the governor did considerable state business from a Yahoo e-mail address — an arrangement that avoided the safeguards and accountability of the state’s secure e-mail system.

Last month a second Yahoo account maintained by Palin was hacked and images of its inbox were posted publicly online. The inbox included e-mails with subject lines that seemed clearly to relate to legislation.

Judge Stowers called the effort to recover and preserve Palin e-mails relating to state business “important” and noted that Alaska’s public record law was last updated before the rise of the Internet.

Ecuadoreans voted Sunday on a new constitution that would significantly broaden leftist President Rafael Correa’s powers and let him run for two more consecutive terms.

Correa says approval of the Andean nation’s 20th constitution will spur “rapid, profound change,” benefiting the hardworking, humble majority and helping him eradicate a political class that made Ecuador one of Latin America’s most corrupt countries.

While conceding that it’s far from radical compared to similar projects in Venezuela and Bolivia, critics say the new constitution would give Correa far too much control over the economy, as well as the judicial and legislative branches.

Opinion surveys indicated the 45-year-old Correa would comfortably win the vote, a plebiscite on his nearly two years in power.

As polls opened Sunday, the U.S.- and European-trained economist said in a brief televised speech that the vote is “not in favor of or against the government,” but to decide “the model of society in which we will live.”

In an upper-middle-class district of Quito, Roberto Ona said he voted “yes” on the new constitution because it contains educational and social security guarantees.

“There are good and bad things in this government,” the 21-year-old college student said. “The president is a bit domineering, but we’re not voting for the president but for a new constitution.”

Indeed, the proposed constitution would enshrine social security benefits for stay-at-home mothers and workers in the informal sector, as well as free education for all through university level. Such measures would supplement already-popular Correa programs that provide low-interest micro-loans for small businesses, building-material giveaways for homes and free seeds for growing crops.

Approval of the ballot question would almost certainly lead to presidential, congressional and local elections early next year, and an overhaul of the judiciary in which Correa is expected to play a decisive role.

The Central Bank and other key institutions would also cede or lose autonomy to Correa, a self-avowed Christian socialist who took office in 2007 as Ecuador’s sixth president in a decade.

Vicente Pazmino, a 53-year-old businessman, said he was voting “null” — neither yes nor no — because Correa “wants to be master of this country, and the clauses of this constitution will let him do what he wants.”

To gain approval, the constitution must win 50 percent of the vote plus one. Voting is obligatory in Ecuador.

Correa’s critics in a badly splintered and debilitated opposition contend he’s creating a socialist autocracy on the Venezuelan model.

But while Correa took a page out of Hugo Chavez’s playbook by pushing for a new constitution that would help him consolidate power, he has kept the Venezuelan president at arm’s length.

Venezuela has promised to build a half-billion-dollar oil refinery in Ecuador, South America’s fifth-largest oil producer.

But unlike Bolivia “there isn’t a single Cuban doctor here,” said Ecuadorean political analyst Adrian Bonilla. “Nor do you have Venezuelan advisers.” Nor has Correa moved to nationalize telecommunications and electrical utility companies or vowed to establish closer relations with Russia, as both Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales have.

The new constitution’s 444 articles include such environmental prescriptions as “respect for nature, its maintenance and the regeneration of its vital cycles” and a ban on biopiracy. And it says property should have “a social, environmental and productive function.”

Such clauses strike fear in large landholders, who fear state confiscation though Correa has not threatened such action.

Other clauses upset social conservatives, such as one that recognizes the family “in its diverse types.” And while the charter holds that life “begins with conception,” it also guarantees “the right to freely make responsible and informed decisions about one’s health and reproductive life.”

The Roman Catholic hierarchy of this overwhelmingly Catholic nation complains that those provisions could lead to legal abortion and same-sex unions.

Jerusalem, Sept 09: An Israeli Cabinet minister and onetime spy, who helped kidnap Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann and bring him to trial, thinks the same tactic could be used on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad is feared and reviled in Israel because of his repeated calls to wipe the Jewish state off the map. His aggressive pursuit of nuclear technology has only fueled Israel’s fears.

“A man like Ahmadinejad who threatens genocide has to be brought for trial in The Hague,” seat of the international war crimes tribunal, Rafi Eitan said Tuesday. “And all options are open in terms of how he should be brought.”

Asked if kidnapping was acceptable, Eitan replied “Yes. Any way to bring him for trial in The Hague is a possibility.”

Eitan, a member of Israel’s inner Cabinet of ministers with security responsibilities, said he was expressing his own opinion and nothing more.

Eitan, 81, was one of the Mossad agents who kidnapped Eichmann from Argentina in 1960 and brought him to Israel. Eichmann was tried and executed for carrying out Adolf Hitler’s “final solution” to kill European Jewry.

Eitan later headed a shadowy Defense Ministry unit that recruited Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish-American naval analyst who was caught spying for Israel in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison. The affair was one of the most damaging episodes in Israel-U.S. relations.

Turning the screws on the Chinese to ensure compliance with the Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver on the civil nuclear deal, the External Affairs Ministry had summoned China’s ambassador to India Zhang Yan to South Block late on Friday night. Zhang was told in no uncertain terms that India had concerns about the Chinese position at the NSG; and that Beijing should clarify its position in advance of Saturday’s meeting of the Group in Vienna.

The Chinese decision not to oppose the developing consensus at the NSG was conveyed to India just hours before the Group met in Vienna at 2.30 pm IST. A senior External Affairs Ministry official, however, tried to downplay the significance of the summons, saying India did not want to dwell on the issue. “We want to move on,” the official took the view.

National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan has, of course, publicly stated that India was unhappy with the position adopted by the Chinese government. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jeichi will meet External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday.

A former foreign minister and ruling party stalwart emerged quickly Tuesday as the front-runner to replace Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, whose sudden resignation has thrown Japan’s political scene into confusion and opened the door to early nationwide elections.

Fukuda, in office less than one year, said Monday he was stepping down because he was unable to break a deadlock with the emboldened Democratic Party of Japan over virtually all of his major policy objectives.

The opposition immediately derided Fukuda for quitting, and called for elections to test the ruling party’s seemingly crumbling mandate with the voters.

Taro Aso, 67, moved to dispel criticism of a power vacuum. Aso, the head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s secretary-general, said he felt he was capable of succeeding where Fukuda failed and had demonstrated that he has ideas of his own.

“I must take leadership,” he said in a strong indication that he will run when the Liberal Democrats vote for a new party president on Sept. 22. Party officials said campaigning will officially begin Sept. 10.

After being selected as Liberal Democratic Party president, the leader would be subject to a vote in parliament for approval as prime minister. But that is largely a formality because of the party’s majority with its junior coalition partner in the powerful lower house.

It was not clear when the parliament vote would take place. Parliament was to reconvene on Sept. 12 for an extraordinary session, but officials said that was likely to be delayed.

Aso, named just weeks ago as LDP secretary-general, has a gruff, outspoken manner that apparently works well with voters. But his off-the-cuff comments have ruffled feathers at home and abroad. He has angered China for warning it was a military threat.

He comes from solid political stock.

Aso’s grandfather was Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who negotiated the peace treaty ending World War II. Aso also has an engaging personality, went to the Olympics on Japan’s skeet shooting team in Montreal in 1976 and is a well-known fan of comic books.

“Mr. Aso seems to be the front-runner at the moment,” said Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Sophia University. “But whether he is a capable prime minister is a different story.”

Whoever replaces Fukuda will face a difficult task.

Although the ruling Liberal Democrats have largely dominated Japanese politics since World War II, the opposition, led by the Democratic Party, has recently been winning new ground and now controls the upper house of parliament.

With voters concerned about rising food and fuel prices, and a general dissatisfaction with the Liberal Democrats’ seeming lack of direction, the Democratic Party of Japan is calling for snap elections — and analysts believe they could make big gains.

A general election must take place by September next year, but the prime minister can call one at any time.

“We are going to see snap elections soon, maybe around the end of this year. Holding elections is the only way to bring about a breakthrough for the political deadlock,” said Hiroshi Kawahara, political science professor at Waseda University.

Kawahara said the elections would likely help the opposition.

“If snap elections take place, it will be a great chance for the DPJ to grab power,” he said. “The DPJ may even win votes from LDP supporters, as many voters are very fed up with the LDP’s dismal performance.”

The Liberal Democrats, fearing losses at the polls, had tried desperately to turn things around under Fukuda, who just last week announced an $18 billion stimulus package to buoy the economy. Several weeks ago he reshuffled his Cabinet in an unsuccessful attempt to renew public faith in his government.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Israel’s idea of an interim peace agreement at a Sunday summit, a Palestinian negotiator said, insisting on an all-or-nothing approach that virtually ruled out an accord by a January target date.

The latest meeting between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was their shortest, lasting less than an hour. Neither side pointed to progress.

Olmert entered the meeting in a weakened position after his decision to submit his resignation this month when his party picks a new leader. Just two days before Abbas arrived for talks at Olmert’s residence Sunday, Israeli police passed through the same entrance to interrogate Olmert for the seventh time in a series of corruption cases.

Abbas, too, is not in a strong political position, having lost control of Gaza to Islamic Hamas militants last year.

Because of Israel’s complicated political system, Olmert could still find himself in office next year, even if he resigns this month as promised. His aides said Sunday he hoped the Palestinians would sign a document outlining any agreements reached with Israel before he leaves office.

But Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas flatly rejected that at the brief summit on Sunday.

“We want an agreement to end the (Israeli) occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” Erekat told The Associated Press. “President Abbas told Olmert that we will not be part of an interim or shelf agreement,” he said. “Either we agree on all issues, or no agreement at all.”

The Israelis had a more upbeat take on the Sunday summit.

Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said “significant progress had been made in the talks,” but “there are still considerable gaps between the two sides.” He would not elaborate.

With cameras rolling as the two stood in front of their flags, Olmert rebuked Abbas for meeting with released prisoner Samir Kantar during a recent trip to Lebanon. Israel traded Kantar and other prisoners for the bodies of two of its soldiers. Kantar was convicted of killing three people in a grisly attack in northern Israel in 1979.

Olmert told Abbas he was “upset” by the meeting with Kantar, “a murderer.” Olmert said, “You are a man of peace. You should meet people of peace.” Abbas’ response was not audible.

At a U.S.-sponsored peace conference last November, Olmert and Abbas pledged efforts toward a peace treaty by the time President Bush leaves office in January 2009.

But frequent summit meetings and negotiating sessions since then have made little apparent progress on the core issues that have stymied peace efforts for decades — including borders, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Erekat refused to confirm the private views of officials on both sides that some headway has been made on setting borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.

Officials in Olmert’s office said Israel has proposed giving the Palestinians all of Gaza, 93 percent of the West Bank along with Israeli land equivalent to 5.5 percent of the West Bank, as well as a land corridor through Israel to link the two separate territories. The Palestinians have said that offer is unacceptable.

Instead, the Palestinians complain bitterly about continued Israeli construction in West Bank settlements, despite an Israeli pledge to halt the building as part of a 2003 peace plan that still serves as the framework for negotiations. Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo called settlement construction “the most critical issue that threatens the whole peace process now.”

The Palestinians charge that Israel is swallowing up West Bank land they claim for their state. Israel counters that it is not expanding settlements; rather, building inside settlement blocs it plans to keep in a final peace accord.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic refused to enter pleas Friday to charges including genocide and crimes against humanity.

Karadzic faces a total of 11 charges at the U.N.’s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. Judge Iain Bonomy, who presided over the hearing, entered not guilty pleas on Karadzic’s behalf.

He is charged with genocide for allegedly masterminding atrocities, including the slaughter of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1995 and the deadly siege of Sarajevo, when he was president of the breakaway Bosnian Serb republic.

“This court is representing itself falsely as a court of the international community whereas it is in fact a court of NATO whose aim is to liquidate me,” Karadzic said. “I will not plead, in line with my standpoint as regards to this court.”

The next hearing is Sept. 17 when Karadzic said he would challenge the court’s jurisdiction. No trial date has been set.

Karadzic, 63, was back in court for only his second public appearance since his arrest July 21 in the Serb capital Belgrade after 13 years on the run.

The 25-minute hearing was a crucial step along the path to Karadzic’s trial for allegedly masterminding the worst atrocities perpetrated by Serb forces in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, which claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people.

Karadzic, looking less tired than at his first appearance shortly after his arrest a month ago, employed sarcasm that failed to amuse the Scottish judge.

When Bonomy told the former leader he was entering not guilty pleas, Karadzic said: “May I hold you to your word … that I am not guilty?”

Bonomy replied: “We shall see in due course, Mr. Karadzic.”

Outside the court, the president of the Mothers of Srebrenica group that represents survivors of the massacre said she wanted to witness the case.

“We came to see (the) initial appearance of the biggest butcher of the 20th century in the Balkans,” Munira Subasic said.

Prosecutors accuse Karadzic of orchestrating a savage campaign of ethnic cleansing to drive Muslims and Croats out of territory claimed by a breakaway Bosnian Serb ministate.

According to his indictment, the reign of terror began with the destruction of villages and establishment of brutal internment camps where civilian detainees were tortured, raped and murdered.

It progressed through the horror of the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, during which Serb forces relentlessly shelled the Bosnian capital and sniped at its inhabitants as they sat in trams, stood in line for bread and even as they mourned at funerals.

Srebrenica was its murderous climate — Europe’s biggest massacre since the Holocaust.

Bonomy pressed prosecutors to work fast to draw up a new, streamlined indictment against Karadzic.

Prosecutor Alan Tieger said he hoped to have a new charge sheet ready by the end of September.

“I sincerely hope you are not serious about that date,” Bonomy told Tieger.

A teenage Iraqi girl wearing a vest packed with explosives turned herself in rather than go through with a suicide bombing in a violence-torn city north of Baghdad, police and the U.S. military said on Monday.A U.S. military statement said the girl surrendered to police on Sunday in Baquba, capital of Iraq’s restive Diyala province, where Sunni Arab al Qaeda militants are waging war on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

She was still wearing the vest, which police had to remove before detaining her. Iraqi police and U.S. sources differed on the girl’s age, with estimates ranging from 13 to 17.

“Reports are that she approached the IPs (Iraqi police) saying she had the vest on and didn’t want to go through with it,” U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Commander David Russell told Reuters on Monday. “If she was forced to put on the vest or if she did it voluntarily, that is still being reviewed.”

Police footage obtained by Reuters showed a girl with dyed red hair talking with four Iraqi policemen from a distance, her back against a wall. After some minutes, one of them approaches her and ties her arms back onto a railing.

Two policemen then remove the vest. After searching her, one takes off his jacket and drapes it over her to cover the girl’s bare shoulders.

Under interrogation in a police station later, she said an older woman had strapped the vest to her and told her to go near the entrance of a local school and await instructions from someone who would meet her there, police said.

Suicide bomb attacks by women and girls have become increasingly common in Iraq this year. U.S. forces say al Qaeda militants favour female bombers because they can escape detection by police reluctant to search women.

Female suicide bombers attacked Shi’ite pilgrims during two annual rites in recent weeks, killing dozens. Many attacks by female suicide bombers have taken place in Diyala.

“The surrender of the suicide bomber indicates that the Iraqis are continuing to reject al-Qaeda and its practices,” said Major Jon Pendell, a U.S. military spokesman.

Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered an award equivalent to around $4,000 (2,160 pounds) be paid to one of the policemen for his role in the operation.

Iraq has become far less dangerous over the past year, but militants are still able to carry out devastating bombings.

A male suicide bomber killed 25 people at a banquet in western Baghdad’s Sunni Arab Abu Ghraib district on Sunday.