Summary: Trying just one cigarette may not be so harmless for non-smokers after all.

Scientists have discovered that a single cigarette has a "sleeper effect" that can increase a person's vulnerability for three years or more to becoming a regular smoker.

Fidler and her team analyzed the impact of smoking a single cigarette on more than 2,000 children aged between 11 and 16 over five years.

A methane explosion tore through a coal mine belonging to Mittal Steel in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 41 people in the country's worst mining accident on record.

The Lenin mine, where the blast occurred just before 9 a.m. (11 p.m. EDT), is one of eight supplying coal to the company's Temirtau factory, one of the world's biggest steel plants.

Grigory Prezent, deputy coal department director of Mittal Steel Temirtau, told reporters at the scene it was "almost certain" that 41 people had been killed.

"Thirty-two bodies have been found. They are being recovered at the moment. Another nine are in a dead-end coal face... But it's obvious that they are dead," he said.

The steel plant in the central region of Karaganda, 200 km (125 miles) south of the capital, Astana, continued to work as normal, a company source said, and the accident would not affect customers.

On a stormy April day in 1995, the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 was sailing in the North Atlantic when the ocean liner dipped into a "hole in the sea." Out of the darkness, a towering 95-foot wave threatened to crash down upon the vessel, which the 70,000-ton ship attempted to surf in order to avoid being pummeled to the bottom of the ocean.

China has dismissed American claims that it is selling weapons to rogue countries, calling the allegations "groundless and irresponsible."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang called the criticism "groundless and irresponsible," the official Xinhua News Agency said Friday. No other details were given.

The trial of French far-right leader and former presidential candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, on charges of denying the horrors of the Nazi occupation of France will be held in June 2007, after the next election, a court said on Thursday.

The charges against the founder of the National Front (FN) stem from comments he made to an extreme right-wing magazine in January 2005 in which he said the Nazis were "not especially inhumane" in France during World War II.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Bush Administration is objecting to a groundbreaking treaty that set up a nuclear weapon-free zone in Central Asia.

Under the treaty signed Friday, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan committed themselves not to produce, buy, or allow the deployment of nuclear weapons on their soil.

But the United States, along with Britain and France, refused to attend the signing ceremony in the Kazakh capital, Almaty, citing a 1992 treaty that Russia signed with four of the five nations that Moscow claims could allow missiles to be deployed in the region.

In a fresh statement issued Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan warned that "other international treaties could take precedence over the provisions of this treaty, and thus obviate the central objective of creating a zone free of nuclear weapons."

Arms control groups believe the Bush administration is being disingenuous.

"The reason that many of us suspect the U.S. is opposed to this is more fundamental," the independent Arms Control Association's Daryl G. Kimball told OneWorld. "This is a very strategic region. The U.S. is reticent to give up the option of deploying nuclear weapons in this region in the future."

SINGAPORE - World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz aid on Friday that Singapore had damaged its own reputation by imposing "authoritarian" restrictions on the entry of activists for the World Bank/IMF meetings.

Wolfowitz said the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund did not plan to postpone their annual gathering, but he had unusually sharp words for the Southeast Asian host country.

"Enormous damage has been done and a lot of that damage is done to Singapore and self-inflicted. This could have been an opportunity for them to showcase to the world their development process," Wolfowitz said at a meeting with activists.

PARIS - An ape found near Paris might have died of rabies and anyone who has recently been bitten or scratched by a monkey in the region should seek medical care, health authorities said on Friday.

The sick Barbary ape was abandoned near a vet's clinic in the southeastern suburbs of Paris earlier this week. It died shortly afterwards and initial tests suggested it had been suffering from rabies or Simian herpes.

Further tests are underway, but as a precautionary measure the health ministry issued a statement warning of the risks.

Although it is illegal to own Barbary apes as pets, authorities believe that many of the animals are illegally smuggled into France from Morocco and Algeria and are seen as the ultimate furry status symbol in the tough Paris suburbs.

Cuddly as babies, Barbary apes rapidly grow into strong, aggressive adults with powerful teeth and claws.

MIAMI - Tropical Storm Helene moved quickly in the open Atlantic early Thursday, while Hurricane Gordon gained strength but posed no threat to land, forecasters said.

The remnants of Hurricane Florence, which had raked southern Newfoundland in Canada with 100 mph wind gusts and rain on Wednesday, damaging roads, ripping shingles from roofs and knocking out power, moved away from the coast on Thursday. The Canadian Hurricane Center said the winds should decrease through the day.

Helene had top sustained winds near 40 mph Thursday morning, just above the 39-mph threshold for a tropical storm. The eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season formed late Wednesday night.

At 5 a.m. EDT, Helene was centered 695 miles west of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands and moving west over warm Atlantic waters at 22 mph, forecasters said. A gradual turn toward the west-northwest was expected over the next 24 hours.

Gordon was upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane late Wednesday when its top sustained winds jumped to 120 mph, up from 110 mph earlier in the day, forecasters said.

The periodic phenomenon known as El Nino has developed in the Pacific Ocean threatening extreme weather in many parts of the world, US scientists say.

El Ninos begin with a warming of waters in the eastern Pacific, and there has been a steep rise in water temperature in recent weeks, they say.

This El Nino is likely to strengthen towards the end of the year and early into 2007, the researchers add.

However it is not expected to reach the strength of the 1997 phenomenon.