Tennis: Nadal triumphs in singles return

VINA DEL MAR, Chile: Rafael Nadal made a triumphant singles return after a seven-month absence, beating Argentinian qualifier Federico Delbonis 6-3, 6-2 in the second round of the ATP claycourt tournament.

The 11-time Grand Slam champion from Spain hadn't played since a shock second-round exit from Wimbledon in June.

A torn tendon and inflammation in his left knee had kept him out of the London Olympics and the 2012 US Open, while a virus further delayed his return to action this year.

The rust was showing as Nadal, now ranked fifth in the world, dropped his serve in the first game of the match and quickly fell into an 0-2 hole.

But he soon rebounded against his 128th-ranked opponent, regaining the break in the fourth game before prevailing in a hard-fought eighth game to give himself a chance to serve for the opening set.

Former world number one Nadal, playing with the familiar band of tape around the bottom of his left knee, looked keen to get things underway as he danced on the balls of his feet during the coin toss.

He seemed to move with ease around the sun-splashed red clay court, even when racing to the net after drop shots.

- AFP/de

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Yelp boasts 100M unique visitors in January

Yelp founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppleman

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET)

On the day when Yelp posted a less-than-rosy quarter earnings, missing Wall Street expectations and posting a loss of more than $5 million, Yelp founder and CEO took the company's blog to boast what he says is a major milestone: In January, Yelp saw 100 unique visitors to its site, a first in the company's almost decade-long history.

That figure, Stoppleman wrote, doesn't even include the vistors to Yelp's mobile apps.

For the first time in Yelp history, over 100 million unique visitors came to the site in a one-month period. That's an all-time high for traffic to the desktop and mobile site and a clear indication that people are looking for local businesses and finding them on Yelp. While that number is huge, it doesn't even include the 9.4 million unique mobile devices that used the Yelp mobile app in January alone.

For more details, Yelp made up a nifty infographic. You can go here to check it out.

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Fiery pileup kills motorists on Ga. interstate

MONTROSE, Ga. More than two dozen cars, pickup trucks and tractor-trailers collided Wednesday morning in a fiery pileup on a foggy Georgia interstate, killing at least three people and sending nine others to a hospital, officials said.

Work crews on Interstate 16 were still clearing charred and twisted wreckage from the crash scene, which covered nearly a quarter-mile of the roadway, nearly six hours after the chain of crashes occurred at about 8:10 a.m.

State troopers said there were four separate crashes involving 27 vehicles, CBS Savannah affiliate WTOC-TV reports.

The Georgia State Patrol was still trying to piece together what started the series of wrecks. Capt. Kirk McGlamery said even drivers who dodged to the side of cars crashing in front of them weren't safe from getting rear-ended off the highway's shoulder.

"It was just a chain-reaction," McGlamery said. "I talked to two individuals involved who had come to a stop and had pulled off, one was on the shoulder and the other was trying to get out of the way, when they were struck by vehicles coming up behind them."

Officials said poor visibility likely played a big part. Weather forecasts called for dense fog Wednesday morning, and McGlamery said motorists reported smoke across the highway. He said a controlled burn had been permitted nearby the day before, and troopers were trying to find out if burning continued into Wednesday.

The crash shut down I-16 in both directions for several hours, though a single eastbound lane had opened Wednesday afternoon. The highway covers only 170 miles between nearby Macon in central Georgia and Savannah on the coast. But it's heavily traveled by commercial trucks hauling goods between Atlanta and Savannah's busy seaport, and is often used by travelers as a route to Interstate 95 along the Eastern Seaboard.

McGlamery said seven tractor-trailers were involved in the pileup, including an empty fuel tanker that exploded and caught fire.

Joseph White, a soldier in the Army National Guard, told the The Courier Herald of Dublin he was heading to work when he drove into heavy traffic clouded by black smoke. He was rear-ended before he saw a fuel tanker hit an 18-wheeler.

"I'm looking back and the tanker exploded," said White, who ran from the scene after his car came to a halt. "Pieces of the tanker flew toward me on the freeway, barely missing me. A piece of the tanker landed like 10 feet behind me as I was running. It almost fell on my head."

Martha Strickland, who passed through the smoky scene shortly after the crashes, said she could see the tanker burning but not engulfed in flames.s

"We had to creep by because, you know, it was just so much smoke and to keep us from getting in a wreck, and we were on eastbound and that was in westbound," Strickland said.

Laurens County EMS director Terry Cobb, who was among the first emergency officials at the scene, said at least six vehicles were still on fire when crews arrived. Emergency officials encountered fog on the way to the crash site, though it seemed to lift one they arrived, Cobb said.

Cobb and the State Patrol confirmed nine people were taken to a hospital in nearby Dublin, though none of the injuries appeared life-threatening.

The three people who died in the crash were all in separate vehicles, McGlamery said. Their names were not immediately released.

The area was under a dense fog advisory at the time of the pileup, said Laura Belanger, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Peachtree City. In some areas, visibility was only a quarter-mile or less, Belanger said.

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FBI Releases Alaska Serial Killer's Handwritten Notes

Serial killer Israel Keyes' blood smeared suicide letter, obtained by ABCNews.com, is a creepy ode to murder in which he clearly enjoys killing his victims and expresses his disgust with peoples' everyday lives.

"You may have been free, you loved loving your lie, fate had its own scheme, crushed like a bug you still die," Keyes wrote.

At another point he writes about the "nervous laugh as it burst like a pulse of blood from your throat. There will be no more laughter here."

The arrest of Keyes, 34, on March 12, 2012 for the murder of Alaskan barista Samantha Koenig ended more than a decade of traveling around the country to find victims to kill or to prepare for future crimes by burying murder kits of weapons, cash and tools to dispose of bodies. Since March he had been slowly telling police about his hidden life and how he operated. But the tale abruptly ended when Keyes committed suicide in his jail cell on Dec. 1.

Police are now left trying to fill in the details of his vicious life. Police believe he killed between 8 and 12 people, including Koenig, but only three victims have been definitively tied to Keyes so far.

The FBI released Keyes' four-page document today describing it as "a combination of pencil and ink on yellow legal pad." The pages were discovered under Keyes' body, "illegible and covered in blood," the FBI said.

Alaska Barista, Alleged Killer Come Face-to-Face: Caught on Tape Watch Video

Serial Killer Sexually Assaulted, Dismembered Alaska Barista Watch Video

Click here to see the original letter.

The papers were sent to an FBI laboratory in Virginia for processing and the FBI was able to restore the notes to a mostly legible condition for review and analysis.

"The FBI concluded there was no hidden code or message in the writings," the FBI said in a news release today. "Further, it was determined that the writings do not offer any investigative clues or leads as to the identity of other possible victims."

The FBI said it would not offer any commentary as the meaning of the writings, but the chillingly morbid writings speak for themselves.

Keyes seems to refer to his victim as a "pretty captive butterfly." He describes what appears to be the victim's final moments:

"Now that I have you held tight I will tell you a story, speak soft in your ear so you know that it's true. You're my love at first sight and though you're scared to be near me, my words penetrate your thoughts now in an intimate prelude.

"I looked in your eyes, they were so dark, warm and trusting, as though you had not a worry or care. The more guiless the game the better potential to fill up those pools with your fear.

"Your face framed in dark curls like a portrait, the sun shone through highlights of red. What color I wonder, and how straight will it turn plastered back with the sweat of your blood.

"Your wet lips were a promise of a secret unspoken, nervous laugh as it burst like a pulse of blood from your throat. There will be no more laughter here."

Keyes also criticized elements of daily life including waiting to die in retirement homes, watching reality television shows, vanity and going to a mindless job.

"Land of the free, land of the lie, land of scheme Americanize!" he wrote twice as a refrain. "Consume what you don't need, stars you idolize, pursue what you admit is a dream, then it's American die."

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Tunisian leader to form new government after activist shot

TUNIS (Reuters) - The killing of an outspoken critic of Tunisia's Islamist-led government on Wednesday sparked street protests by thousands who fear religious radicals are stifling freedoms won two years ago in the first of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Chokri Belaid was shot at close range as he left for work by a gunmen who fled on the back of a motorcycle; crowds poured on to the streets of Tunis and other cities, attacking offices of the main ruling party Ennahda, and by the end of the day the Islamist prime minister promised a national unity government.

There was no immediate local reaction to the plan by Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali of Ennahda to dissolve his coalition and bring in a wider range of political groups. After dark, hundreds of demonstrators were still fighting running battles with police in the capital, throwing rocks amid volleys of teargas.

Jebali, whose party has dismissed any suggestion it might be behind the assassination, said he would shortly announce the formation of a new government of non-partisan technocrats.

World powers, alarmed in recent months at the extent of radical Islamist influence and the bitterness of the political stalemate, urged Tunisians to reject violence and see through the move to democracy they began two years ago, when the Jasmine Revolution ended decades of dictatorship and inspired fellow Arabs in Egypt and across North Africa and the Middle East.

As in Egypt, the rise to power of political Islam through the ballot box has prompted a backlash among less organized, more secular minded political movements in Tunisia. Belaid, a 48-year-old left-wing lawyer who made a name challenging the old regime of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, led a party with little electoral support but his vocal opinions had a wide audience.

The day before his death he was publicly lambasting a "climate of systematic violence". He had blamed tolerance shown by Ennahda and its two, smaller secularist allies in the coalition government toward hardline Salafists for allowing the spread of groups hostile to international culture.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Writing by Alison Williams and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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"Hundreds" of rebels killed, France to leave Mali from March

GAO, Mali: French-led forces have killed hundreds of Islamists in fighting to reclaim northern Mali and with the rebels' last bastion secured, France said Tuesday it will begin withdrawing its troops from March.

Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the 26-day military intervention had killed "several hundred" Islamist militants as its air and ground forces chased them from their northern strongholds into remote mountainous terrain in the far northeast, near the Algerian border.

The defence ministry said the Islamists died in French air strikes on vehicles transporting fighters and equipment, and in "direct combat in Konna and Gao", key central and northern towns.

France's sole fatality so far has been a helicopter pilot who was killed at the start of the military operation, while "two or three" soldiers have suffered light injuries, Le Drian said.

Mali said 11 of its troops were killed and 60 wounded after the battle at Konna last month but it has not since released a new death toll.

Le Drian said the Malian army had taken "some prisoners, not many, who will have to answer to Malian courts and to international justice," adding that some of those detained were high-ranking militants.

France expects to begin withdrawing its soldiers from Mali "starting in March, if all goes as planned", French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told daily newspaper Metro in an interview to be published Wednesday.

Nearly 4,000 French troops are currently deployed in Mali, and the former colonial ruler is keen to hand over the operation to African troops amid warnings the Islamists could now launch a prolonged insurgency.

The French defence ministry said Kidal -- the last town to fall of those seized by Al Qaeda-linked fighters who occupied northern Mali for 10 months -- was now under the control of French forces and some 1,800 Chadian troops.

The rebels have fled to the Adrar des Ifoghas massif around Kidal, a craggy mountain landscape honeycombed with caves, where they are believed to be holding seven French hostages.

An ethnic Tuareg group formerly allied with the Islamists, the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA), meanwhile said it had retaken Menaka, a town previously claimed by French-led forces.

A Malian security source confirmed the Tuareg group was in the town 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the Niger border, which Nigerien troops had taken from Islamist occupiers but then left as they continued their advance.

Tuaregs working against "terrorists"

The MNLA -- which was originally fighting alongside the Islamists but then fell out with them -- earlier said it was working with France against "terrorists" in the region.

"In the framework of anti-terrorist coordination put in place with French forces", the MNLA will provide intelligence on "top terrorist officials" they have arrested, a spokesman said in Burkina Faso.

The group said it was responsible for the arrest on Sunday of two Islamist leaders, Mohamed Moussa Ag Mohamed, the number three in Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith), and Oumeini Ould Baba Akhmed of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO).

The MNLA launched a rebellion a year ago fighting for an independent state for the desert nomad Tuareg people, who have long felt marginalised by Mali's government.

But, after being chased from their strongholds by the Islamists, they have voiced a willingness to negotiate since France intervened.

With France eager to shed some of the military burden and 8,000 pledged African troops being deployed at a slow trickle, observers have said Paris is likely examining whether the MNLA is a possible partner.

Le Drian said France had "functional relations" with the group in Kidal but that fighting terrorists alongside them was "not our objective".

"As soon as the MNLA declares -- it seems it is doing so -- that it is not terrorist, or secessionist, and that it wants to be part of the internal dialogue in Mali, it will have a place at the table," he said.

In France, President Francois Hollande urged Europe to fight drug trafficking in west Africa, telling the European Parliament that "terrorism feeds on narcotics trafficking".

Analysts say the groups that seized northern Mali depend on drug trafficking, smuggling and kidnapping to arm themselves.

And in Brussels, global players including the United Nations and African Union met to carve out plans for Mali's future once the 26-day-old offensive draws to an end, urging elections -- which Mali's interim government has promised by July 31 -- and a national dialogue.

-AFP/ac

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Why going private is a good thing for Dell

The Dell Inspiron 15z is one of Dell's latest PC offerings.

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

In October 2011, I managed to annoy Michael Dell.

It was shortly after Steve Jobs died, and I sat with Dell for a 30-minute talk at the company's home in Round Rock, Texas. I was a reporter for Dow Jones at the time.

The interview had nearly ended, and Dell was on his way out the door when I asked the question, "Michael, is there anything you learned from Steve Jobs and his time at Apple that you can apply to Dell?"

He paused thoughtfully and then said that he'd met Jobs while in college and that it left a big impression on him. I responded that that was great, but what about now? Was Dell trying to emulate Apple in any way or had he gained any insights from Apple's transformation?

Dell clearly didn't like the inquiry. He stopped for a moment, scowled, and then said, "I think we're done here," as he walked out of the room.

I'm still waiting for the answer to my query, and maybe now Dell can find it as a private company, unencumbered by the needs of public investors and the scrutiny of Wall Street.

Clearly, the tables have turned for Dell, and that's why I asked that question. During the dot-com boom, Dell was on top of the PC market, and Apple was still struggling to come back from its near-death moment. Michael Dell famously quipped in late 1997 that all that could be done for then-struggling Apple was to "shut it down and give the money back to shareholders."

It's easy to pass off Dell's predicament as an entertaining case of schadenfreude, but the company isn't a giant on the brink the way Apple was in the mid-1990s. While Dell's fiscal third-quarter net income tumbled 47 percent from the same quarter a year ago to $475 million and its revenue dropped 11 percent to $13.7 billion, it still generated $1.3 billion in cash flow from operations during the period ended Nov. 2. That brought its total cash and investments to $14.2 billion.

Michael Dell at the Web 2.0 Summit in October 2011.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

In short, the glass is half full. Dell remains one of the world's biggest PC makers, though its market share has been falling to Asian rivals such as Lenovo. It's trying to emulate IBM by expanding in business technology like storage and services, but the operations haven't been showing results fast enough for investors.

And in high-growth markets like smartphones and
tablets, Dell's efforts could charitably be described as disappointing, pointing toward an alarming future of shrinking sales in low-growth or no-growth markets.

So how do you get this once-mighty but still huge company back on track? Dell ultimately decided the best way to do it was behind a curtain. Michael Dell and investment firm Silver Lake said today that they're partnering on a $24.4 billion leveraged buyout, and Microsoft is even kicking in a $2 billion loan to help fund the deal.

While going private may unsettle customers right now, it's the right thing to do. The company can do what it needs to without disclosing every move to regulators and public shareholders. For example, it can grow its enterprise business and figure out what it's going to do in mobile.

"I would describe Dell's last few years as in transition but lacking focus," Forrester analyst David Johnson said. "[As a private company], they could be more nimble and able to focus the organization and business faster."

(Note the Forrester analyst is not the David Johnson who previously oversaw Dell's M&A strategy.)

Dell played a key role in the PC revolution, but its traditional products are being left behind in the mobile boom. For Dell, that has meant shifting focus to providing data center technology instead of simply selling PCs. And it has had some success there. While overall fiscal third-quarter results were dismal, revenue in Dell's server and networking business climbed 11 percent from the previous year to $2.32 billion.

But building an enterprise business and attracting new customers to replace consumers takes time. Dell has been expanding its offerings by making acquisitions, such as IT services provider Perot Systems and storage maker Compellent. But pulling all that together into one neat package -- a la IBM Global Services -- takes time.

And going private buys time. Dell apparently will stay the course with its current plans to diversify away from PCs, based on comments Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden made to several publications today.

In addition, Dell's closer relationship with Microsoft through the software giant's loan could end up being mutually beneficial. Microsoft has been trying to more tightly control the entire device-making process. It not only builds its own tablets now but also has started exerting more say over its partners' products. An even closer relationship between Microsoft and Dell could result in devices with better integration between hardware and software in consumer devices. And it also could ensure Microsoft has a strong partner for its enterprise business.

How Microsoft became a control freak with tablet makers

Of course, there are risks with going private. Instead of quarterly check-ins with investors, Silver Lake could grow frustrated and demand faster improvements. And just because Dell doesn't have to answer to public shareholders doesn't mean its backers won't expect returns on their investments.

In addition, customers may be hesitant to buy many Dell products because they're afraid -- rightly or wrongly -- that Dell won't continue to support what they bought.

"While the company might come out of this transition stronger with a product lineup that better meets the needs of businesses and public sector organizations, there will be uncertainty as to what products and services stay, get [strengthened], or get eliminated," Carter Lusher, chief IT analyst at Ovum, said.

And even if Dell has more time and less scrutiny, the overall tech environment remains very competitive. IBM sure won't be waiting for Dell to figure out its strategy, and neither will HP, Lenovo, Apple, or various other rivals.

More than anything, Dell needs to start innovating, whether it's in PCs, mobile devices, or enterprise offerings. If there's anything Michael Dell should have learned from Jobs and Apple, it's this: It's not enough to simply build me-too products.

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Gay marriage gets OK from British lawmakers

LONDON British lawmakers on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage championed by Prime Minister David Cameron, despite strong opposition from within his Conservative Party.

In a first House of Commons vote, lawmakers voted 400 to 175 in support of the legislation. There was majority support from the left-leaning Labour Party and Liberal Democrats party, but around half of the Conservative lawmakers rejected the proposals or abstained.

The bill will have to go through more detailed parliamentary debates and a vote in the House of Lords, where a vote in favor is likely given the strong support Tuesday. If it becomes law, the proposed bill would enable same-sex couples to get married in both civil and religious ceremonies, provided that the religious institution consents.

The bill would also allow couples who had previously entered into civil partnerships to convert their relationship into a marriage.

Earlier, Cameron - who did not attend a Parliament debate ahead of the vote - said passing the bill is "an important step forward" for Britain.

"I am a strong believer in marriage. It helps people commit to each other and I think it is right that gay people should be able to get married too," he said. "This is, yes, about equality. But it is also about making our society stronger."

Officials have stressed that all religious organizations can decide for themselves if they want to "opt in" to holding gay weddings. However, the Church of England, the country's official faith, is barred from performing such ceremonies.

That provision aims to ensure that the Church, which opposes gay marriage, is protected from legal claims that as the official state religion it must marry anyone who requests it.

Currently same-sex couples only have the option of a civil partnership, which offers the same legal rights and protections on issues such as inheritance, pensions, and child maintenance.

Supporters say that gay relationships should be treated exactly the same way as heterosexual ones, but critics worry that the proposals would change long-standing views about the meaning of marriage. Some Conservatives also fear the proposals would cost the party a significant number of votes in the next election.

"Marriage is the union between a man and a woman, has been historically, remains so. It is Alice in Wonderland territory, Orwellian almost, for any government of any political persuasion to seek to come along and try to re-write the lexicon," Conservative lawmaker Roger Gale said.

If passed, the bill's provisions would come into effect in 2015. They apply only to England and Wales - there are no plans for similar legislation in Northern Ireland. Scotland is considering introducing a similar bill.

CBS Radio's Vicki Barker reports from London that Tony and Barry Drewett-Barlow have been in a civil partnership for seven years. They are devout Christians who want a Christian wedding.

"For Barry and I it's about being able to stand up in front of the altar in our local church and say our vows," Tony said, "not only to each other and in law, but also in the eyes of God -- and that's a really important step."

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Rescued Ala. Boy Watching Cartoons in Hospital

The 5-year-old held hostage in a nearly week-long standoff in Alabama is cheerfully watching Spongebob and posting sticky notes on everyone around him at the hospital as organizers plan a birthday party for him so big it may take place at a high school football stadium.

The boy, identified only as Ethan, is apparently unharmed but is at the hospital for numerous evaluations, authorities said today.

Ethan was rescued by the FBI Monday after they rushed the underground bunker where suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, was holding him. Dykes was killed in the raid and the boy was taken away from the bunker in an ambulance.

Ethan's thrilled relatives told "Good Morning America" today that he seemed "normal as a child could be" after what he went through and has been happily playing with his toy dinosaur.

"He's happy to be home," Ethan's great uncle Berlin Enfinger told "GMA." "He's very excited and he looks good."

Click here for a psychological look at what's next for Ethan.

Ethan is "running around the hospital room, putting sticky notes on everyone that was in there, eating a turkey sandwich and watching Spongebob," Dale County Schools Superintendent Donny Bynum said at a news conference today.

Ala. Hostage Standoff Over: Kidnapper Dead, Child Safe Watch Video

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Jimmy Lee Dykes Dead Watch Video

Ethan is expected to be released from the hospital later today and head home where he will be greeted by birthday cards from his friends at school. Ethan will celebrate his 6th birthday Wednesday.

When asked about a birthday party for Ethan, Bynum said, "We are still in the planning stages. Our time frame is that we are waiting for Ethan, waiting on that process, but we are going to have it at a school facility, most likely the football stadium at Dale County High School."

He said many "tears of celebration" were shed Monday night when Ethan was reunited with his family.

"If I could, I would do cartwheels all the way down the road," Ethan's aunt Debra Cook told "GMA." "I was ecstatic. Everything just seemed like it was so much clearer. You know, we had all been walking around in a fog and everyone was just excited. There's no words to put how we felt and how relieved we were."

Cook said that Ethan has not yet told them anything about what happened in the bunker and they know very little about Dykes.

What the family does know is that they are overjoyed to have their "little buddy" back.

"He's a special child, 90 miles per hour all the time," Cook said. "[He's] a very, very loving child. When he walks in the room, he just lights it up."

Dykes allegedly shot and killed bus driver Albert Poland Jr., 66, before taking Ethan hostage.

Authorities said today they have not yet spoken to Poland's family since Ethan's rescue, but were planning on visiting them today.

"We know that Ms. Poland is aware and she is celebrating today with us and we did talk to Mr. Poland's son who lives in Hickory, North Carolina," Bynum said. "He called last night and made the comment, 'My dad's last child is home.' So it goes to show what kind of people they are."

A new school bus and new driver were back today on the route where Poland was killed and Ethan was kidnapped.

Officials have remained tight-lipped about the raid, citing the ongoing investigation.

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Iran's Ahmadinejad kissed and scolded in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was both kissed and scolded on Tuesday when he began the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Tehran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The trip was meant to underline a thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state, President Mohamed Mursi, last June. But it also highlighted deep theological and geopolitical differences.

Mursi, a member of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, kissed Ahmadinejad after he landed at Cairo airport and gave him a red carpet reception with military honors. Ahmadinejad beamed as he shook hands with waiting dignitaries.

But the Shi'ite Iranian leader received a stiff rebuke when he met Egypt's leading Sunni Muslim scholar later at Cairo's historic al-Azhar mosque and university.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old seat of religious learning, urged Iran to refrain from interfering in Gulf Arab states, to recognize Bahrain as a "sisterly Arab nation" and rejected the extension of Shi'ite Muslim influence in Sunni countries, a statement from al-Azhar said.

Visiting Cairo to attend an Islamic summit that begins on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told a news conference he hoped his trip would be "a new starting point in relations between us".

However, a senior cleric from the Egyptian seminary, Hassan al-Shafai, who appeared alongside him, said the meeting had degenerated into an exchange of theological differences.

"There ensued some misunderstandings on certain issues that could have an effect on the cultural, political and social climate of both countries," Shafai said.

"The issues were such that the grand sheikh saw that the meeting ... did not serve the desired purpose."

The visit would have been unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed autocrat who preserved Egypt's peace treaty with Israel during his 30 years in power and deepened ties between Cairo and the West.

"The political geography of the region will change if Iran and Egypt take a unified position on the Palestinian question," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based TV station, on the eve of his trip.

He said he wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory which neighbors Egypt to the east and is run by the Islamist movement Hamas. "If they allow it, I would go to Gaza to visit the people," Ahmadinejad said.

Analysts doubt that the historic changes that brought Mursi to power will result in a full restoration of diplomatic ties between states whose relations were broken off after the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

OBSTACLES TO FULL TIES

At the airport the two leaders discussed ways of improving relations and resolving the Syrian crisis "without resorting to military intervention", Egyptian state media reported.

Egypt is concerned by Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush an uprising inspired by the revolt that swept Mubarak from power two years ago. Egypt's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population is broadly supportive of the uprising against Assad's Alawite-led administration.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr sought to reassure Gulf Arab allies - that are supporting Cairo's battered state finances and are deeply suspicious of Iran - that Egypt would not jeopardize their security.

"The security of the Gulf states is the security of Egypt," he said in remarks reported by the official MENA news agency.

Mursi wants to preserve ties with the United States, the source of $1.3 billion in aid each year to the influential Egyptian military.

"The restoration of full relations with Iran in this period is difficult, despite the warmth in ties ... because of many problems including the Syrian crisis and Cairo's links with the Gulf states, Israel and the United States," said one former Egyptian diplomat.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he was optimistic that ties could grow closer.

"We are gradually improving. We have to be a little bit patient. I'm very hopeful about the expansion of the bilateral relationship," he told Reuters. Asked where he saw room for closer ties, he said: "Trade and economics."

Egypt and Iran have taken opposite courses since the late 1970s. Egypt, under Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat, concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and became a close ally of the United States and Europe. Iran from 1979 turned into a center of opposition to Western influence in the Middle East.

Symbolically, Iran named a street in Tehran after the Islamist who led the 1981 assassination of Sadat.

Egypt gave asylum and a state funeral to Iran's exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the 1979 Iranian revolution. He is buried in a mosque beside Cairo's mediaeval Citadel alongside his ex-brother-in-law, Egypt's last king, Farouk.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir, Marwa Awad and Alexander Diadosz; Writing by Paul Taylor and Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Roche and Robin Pomeroy)

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