Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was jeered when he said in a speech at Colombia University that homosexuality did not exist in Iran.

Human Rights Watch said the number of executions for same-sex intercourse was difficult to determine, since most cases are conducted in closed court and often the defendant is accused of other capital crimes as well as “sodomy.”

But several gays are among an estimated 130 people awaiting execution for offenses committed as juveniles, a violation of international law, it said.

“Over the last five years no one has been charged solely with sodomy and executed,” said Faraz Sanei, the researcher who compiled the report based on contacts with 125 Iranian gays.

Iran rarely carries out the death sentence until after the prisoner turns 18, he said.

The 102-page report cited allegations that suspected sexual offenders were themselves raped or sexually abused in detention by security authorities.

Iranian law criminalizes all sex outside traditional marriage. But the report said the government “appears to officially sanction harassment and abuse” of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Iranians, who are often seen as “diseased, criminals or corrupt agents of Western culture.”

Under Iran’s Islamic law, same-sex intercourse between two men is punishable by death, but the penalty is more lenient for lesbians — 100 lashes for the first three offenses and the death penalty for the fourth. Often convictions are based on forced confessions, Sanei told reporters.

The New York-based group released the report in Amsterdam, where it recently opened an office, to underscore the threat to asylum seekers facing deportation back to Iran, as European countries toughen their asylum regulations and turn away more applicants.

One objective of the report was “sensitizing governments that are solicited by asylum seekers so they will have reliable information and be able to make informed decisions,” said Eric Goldstein, HRW’s research director for the Middle East.

Sanei said the report took five years to complete, but the organization’s researchers were never allowed to enter the country. Interviews were conducted among refugees in Turkey or by e-mail with gays still in Iran.

Three years of talks have been stymied by a sometimes acrimonious divide among industrial and developing countries about their responsibilities in fighting climate change and accepting legal limits on how much they can continue to pollute.

The Cancun conference is the first full U.N. meeting since the letdown last December of the Copenhagen summit, which brought 120 world leaders to the Danish capital in an abortive attempt to adopt an overarching accord governing emissions of made-made greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Instead, that summit ended with a three-page political statement, including an intention to raise $100 billion annually to help poor countries fight the effects of climate change and move toward green development that does not rely on fossil fuels.

Adoption of the Copenhagen Accord was blocked by a half dozen countries, raising questions about whether the U.N. negotiations were capable of reaching any decisions by the rules of consensus requiring at least tacit agreement from every country.

The U.N. process “is growing increasingly irrelevant,” Papua New Guinea delegate Kevin Conrad told the conference Monday, suggesting a rule change allowing for a vote on crucial issues as a last resort if a consensus proves out of reach. The proposal met swift objections and was referred to closed-door consultations.

The conference aimed to conclude an agreement on how to raise and distribute the funding agreed in Copenhagen, including $30 billion “fast-track funds” over three years up to 2012 to help poor countries prepare for climate change. It also hoped for an agreement on saving tropical forests and transferring green technologies to developing nations.

Christiana Figueres, the top U.N. climate official, said the conference also should clarify the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 accord that required industrialized countries to reduce carbon emissions by a total 5 percent by 2012. No arrangements have been made for what happens when Kyoto’s terms expire.

She said delegations should formalize commitments they submitted after Copenhagen to reduce emissions or constrain their growth. Those commitments, which fall far short of reductions scientists say are necessary, have no legal standing.

“Cancun will not solve everything,” Figueres told reporters. But “the outcome needs to be pragmatic.”

The talks end next week with three days of meetings among government ministers. About 25 heads of government or state also will attend, but neither President Barack Obama nor Chinese Premier Hu Jintao, two key players, will be among them.

Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. deputy special envoy for climate change, said Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak will join the conference next week.

Pershing said some of the differences between the U.S. and China appear headed toward a resolution.

“My sense is we have made progress. It remains to be seen how this meeting turns out,” he told reporters.

He acknowledged that Cancun can produced a balanced set of agreements only if the U.S. and China are in accord.

A plague of natural disasters this year added urgency to the talks. Floods in Pakistan, a Russian heat wave that choked Moscow in smoke from forest fires, and global temperatures at least matching the highest ever recorded provided a grim background.

“Climate change is beginning to make us pay for the fatal errors we as humanity have committed against the environment,” Calderon said. Mexico this year suffered the worst drought in six decades followed by intense rain and hurricanes that killed 60 people and displaced thousands, he said.

Continued emissions of carbon and other gases that trap heat in the atmosphere increases the risk of reaching “tipping points” that could bring dramatic changes, like the drying up of the Amazon rain forest or the disruption of India’s vital monsoon rains, said Mario Molina, the Mexican scientist who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his studies of the ozone layer.

“Such catastrophes will have devastating effects” for perhaps billions of people, he warned.

The tools are at hand to limit the planet’s warming at little cost, he said, but it could mean “astronomical costs for future generations” if nothing is done.

“I think ultimately if we don’t make some changes to this organization in the next few years it may be very serious, possibly fatal for the organization — and the whales will be worse off,” said former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer.

Japanese officials and environmentalists traded charges of blame after two days of intense, closed-door talks failed to break a deadlock in which the three whaling nations offered to limit their catch but refused to phase it out completely.

About 1,500 animals are killed each year by the three countries. Japan, which kills the majority of whales, insists its hunt is for scientific research — but more whale meat and whale products end up in Japanese restaurants than in laboratories.

Several whale species have been hunted to near extinction, gradually recovering since the ban on commercial whaling went into effect in 1986, while other species like the smaller minke whale are still abundant. But the whale arouses deep passions around the world, because it was one of the first icons of the animal conservation movement, starting with the popular Save The Whale campaign of the 1970s.

A key sticking point is the sanctity of an ocean region south of Australia that the agency declared a whaling sanctuary in 1994. Despite that declaration, Japanese whalers regularly hunt in Antarctic waters, a feeding ground for 80 percent of the world’s whales, and the commission has no enforcement powers to stop them.

Australia has already launched a complaint against Japanese whaling at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the U.N.’s highest court.

Japan delegate Yasue Funayama said her country had offered major concessions and agreed “to elements which are extremely difficult to accept.” She blamed the failure of the talks on countries that refused to accept the killing of even a single animal.

Palmer, who worked with 12 countries to help draft a compromise, commended Japan, which he said “showed real flexibility and a real willingness to compromise.”

The United States had pushed hard for a deal to bring the three rogue nations back under the commission’s control and recognize a limited catch, but finding an acceptable number of whales to kill proved elusive. A proposal drafted by the commission’s chairman suggested a limit of 400 whales per year for five years, then going down to 200.

“After nearly three years of discussions, it appears our discussions are at an impasse,” said chief U.S. delegate Monica Medina.

Australia, leading the hardline anti-whaling nations, hailed the outcome that preserved the ban on commercial whaling, even though it is flouted by the three whaling states which claim exemptions. Australia was supported by a bloc of Latin American countries.

“The fact that there wasn’t a consensus on the compromise is the right place for the commission to be,” said Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett.

South Korea acknowledged that it wants the right to hunt whales and may apply to the commission for a quota.

The Koreans opposed the latest proposal because it “allows whaling only for countries currently involved in commercial whaling, which excludes South Korea,” said Lee Kang-eun of the department of fishery policies in Seoul.

The 88-nation whaling agency is about evenly split between countries that oppose whaling and nations who advocate sustainable whaling.

Some environmentalists have accused Japan of using its foreign aid to recruit nations into the whaling commission so they support Japan’s position. Ten years ago the commission had only 41 members, but today it includes landlocked nations like Mali that have no direct interest in whaling or ocean conservation.

But the delegate from St. Kitts and Nevis, Daven Joseph, told the media and environmental groups to stop such allegations.

“We have been accused of being surrogates. That is not the case,” he said.

Many environmentalists blamed Japan for the breakdown.

“If Japan had agreed to a phase out in the Southern Ocean, there would have been a good chance” for a deal, said Wendy Elliott of WWF.

Others expressed relief that the 25-year ban on whaling was not lifted.

“Had it been done here, this deal would have lived in infamy,” said Patrick Ramage of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

The commission’s annual meeting ends Friday. Talks now are likely to focus on less controversial issues, such as preventing collisions by whales and ships, the effects of climate change and proposed Russian oil exploration in the seasonal feeding grounds of the endangered gray whale.

But he denied to the AP that his decision to quit was a result of frustration with Copenhagen.

“Copenhagen wasn’t what I had hoped it would be,” he acknowledged, but the summit nonetheless prompted governments to submit plans and targets for reigning in the emissions primarily blamed for global warming. “I think that’s a pretty solid foundation for the global response that many are looking for,” he said.

De Boer told the AP he believes talks “are on track.”

He recommended the next talks take a different tack. Rather than convene several negotiating sessions involving nearly 200 countries, Mexico, which is chairing the negotiations throughout this year, should prepare the November conference to work in smaller groups to lay the groundwork of a deal.

The Mexicans should “engage more intensively early in the process, so that you don’t only rely on formal meetings but through bilateral contacts and frequent meetings in a smaller setting and an earlier understanding of how the process can be advanced,” he told AP.

“At the moment, it tends to be very much a stop-and-start affair with everything concentrated in the formal negotiations, where I think a much more continuous engagement by (Mexico) is needed.”

The partial agreement reached in Copenhagen, brokered by Obama, “was very significant,” he said. But he acknowledged frustration that the deal was merely “noted” rather than formally adopted by all countries.

“We were about an inch away from a formal agreement. It was basically in our grasp, but it didn’t happen,” he said. “So that was a pity.”

The media-savvy former Dutch civil servant and climate negotiator was widely credited with raising the profile of climate issues through his frequent press encounters and his backstage lobbying of world leaders.

But his constant travel and frenetic diplomacy failed to bridge the suspicions and distrust between developing and industrial countries that barred the way to a final agreement at the climate change summit in Copenhagen in December.

People who know de Boer say he was more disheartened by the snail-paced negotiations than he was ready to admit.

“I saw him at the airport after Copenhagen,” said Jake Schmidt, a climate expert for the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council. “He was tired, worn out.” The summit “clearly took a toll on him.”

Schmidt, speaking from Washington, said the Dutch diplomat was “very effective in pushing the envelope” and winning attention for climate change. “He’s done a powerful job … in getting the world to focus on this.”

During de Boer’s tenure, climate talks rose “to a standing item on the agenda of political leaders,” said Oxfam International, a nonprofit group that monitors the talks and advises delegations. World leaders “could learn much from de Boer’s perseverance as well as his uncompromising commitment to do what’s necessary — not just what’s easy.”

The German Green Party said de Boer’s departure presented a chance for a strategic reorientation of his U.N. office.

“The failure of the Copenhagen climate conference was due partly to bad preparation and organization,” the Greens’ climate change specialist Hermann Ott said in a statement. “Now a credible and experienced successor has to be found to make sure the international process to combat climate change continues without delay.”

De Boer, 55, was appointed in 2006 to shepherd through an agreement to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions an average 5 percent.

He said the high point of his efforts was the agreement by developing countries, reached at the 2007 conference in Bali, Indonesia, to join in efforts to contain global warming in return for financial and technical help from the wealthy nations.

The Bali meeting was so intense that during its final meeting, when he was accused of mishandling negotiating arrangements, de Boer walked off the podium in tears. He came back later to an ovation from the thousands of delegates.

His assertiveness sometimes led to accusations that he was overstepping the bounds of a neutral U.N. facilitator.

“They are absolutely right. I did that because I felt the process needed that extra push,” he told the AP.

When he was hired, he said, he told U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, “If you want someone to sit in Bonn and keep his mouth shut then I’m not the right person for the job.”

Yet De Boer habitually put a positive spin on events. Though he occasionally chastised governments, he did it in diplomatic tones. At times when his aides were describing him as “furious” — especially with the administration of George W. Bush — de Boer kept his public comments so modulated that it sounded like praise.

De Boer said he will be a consultant on climate and sustainability issues for KPMG, a global accounting firm, and will be associated with several universities.

“I have always maintained that while governments provide the necessary policy framework, the real solutions must come from business,” he said in a statement released later Thursday. “Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a low-emissions world are overwhelming. This calls for new partnerships with the business sector and I now have the chance to help make this happen,” he said.

De Boer, who comes from a diplomatic family, was born in Vienna and traveled the world before attending a British boarding school. He studied social work at university in The Hague, and one of his early jobs was as a parole officer. He worked for the United Nations in Canada and Kenya, then joined the Dutch housing ministry. He has been involved in climate change issues since 1994, and three years later became the chief climate delegate for the Netherlands.

——

Associated Press Writer Verena Schmitt contributed to this report from Berlin.

Passengers flying to the United States from London’s Heathrow said they received text messages informing them that the hand baggage allowance had been reduced to one item. Airport officials also said security had been heightened.

“We got a text message this morning at about 11 a.m. to say that new rules meant we could only take one piece of hand luggage,” said Karen Ward, 44, from Reading, Berkshire. “I think they’ve handled it very well.”

Italy’s civil aviation authority, ENAC, said it had tightened security at airports for passengers leaving for the United States, with measures including increased manual body and baggage searches.

The extra measures were requested by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration and will initially remain in place for 72 hours, ENAC said in a statement.

Dutch authorities said the suspect boarded a flight in Lagos for the Amsterdam connection. With flights generally reported on time Friday, the Nigerian would have landed on his KLM Boeing 777 before dawn and had a layover of nearly three hours at Schiphol Airport before the Northwest Airbus A330 lifted off for the nine hour flight to Detroit.

His name was on the passenger manifesto that routinely was forwarded to the U.S. before takeoff, and the list was cleared, Sluiter said. He had a U.S. visa valid for the first half of 2010, but Sluiter did not know what kind of visa he had or where it was issued.

An initial investigation showed that the Amsterdam security professionals conducted all the normal procedures for Flight 253 without irregularities, she said, though it’s always possible that potentially dangerous weapons can elude the standard equipment.

The general alert level at Schipol was not immediately raised after the incident, and security procedures for other flights remained unchanged, Sluiter said.

Schiphol, one of Europe’s busiest airports with a heavy load of transit passengers from Africa and Asia to North America, strictly enforces European security regulations including only allowing small amounts of liquid in hand luggage that must be placed inside clear plastic bags.

The airport has been testing full body scanners for about a year that allow security staff to see the outline of a passenger’s beneath their clothes, and intend to roll out a more complete program next year, said airport spokeswoman Mirjam Snoerwang.

Mutallab’s leg was badly burned after his abortive attempt to cripple the plane, an indication that he had strapped the incendiary device onto his leg. It was unclear, however, when he attached the device or whether the body scanner would have caught it.

European Union Security Commissioner Jacques Barrot said the European Commission is working to ensure all security regulations were followed throughout Europe.

Passengers in Brussels, where the EU is based, were advised to reach the airport three hours before departure to allow time for a second security check at the boarding gate.

A spokeswoman for Germany’s interior ministry said that stepped up security at airports was being considered, but noted the nation already has measures considered among the strictest in the world.

“We still assume a high threat for Germany, but we see no need to change our current security measures at this time,” an interior ministry spokeswoman, who did not give her name in line with government policy, told DAPD news agency on Saturday.

Aviation officials throughout the Mideast reported no new restrictions directly connected to the Detroit incident, but said that security was already very high throughout the region.

India, also a target of terrorism in the past, said it was maintaining its normal security measures. “We are in any case alert. I’m not aware of any new steps taken today,” said Onkar Kedij, spokesman for India’s Home Ministry.

——

Associated Press Writers Paisley Dodds in London, Ariel David in Rome , Melissa Eddy in Berlin and Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this report.