iStockphoto/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- Iranian dissidents have long suspected that the country's Islamist regime has used the cover of its not-so-covert war with Israel to crack down on internal opponents, and that a leading Iranian nuclear scientist whose death was blamed on Mossad might really have been killed by his own government.

Now a prominent opposition blogger based in London says that discrepancies in the recent trial and execution of the "Israeli spy" officially charged with killing scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi are yet more evidence that Iranian intelligence agents may have been the real assassins.

Mohammadi, a nuclear physicist, died in January 2010 when a motorcycle parked outside his house was detonated by remote control when he walked past.

A half-dozen scientists and officials linked to the nation's nuclear and long-range missile programs have died under suspicious circumstances since 2010, deaths the Iranian regime usually blames on Israel, the U.S., and the U.K. When Mohammadi died, the regime immediately blamed his murder on a "triangle of wickedness," meaning the U.S., Israel and their "hired agents."

"Zionists did it," said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "They hate us and they don't want us to progress." Ali Larjani, chairman of the Iranian parliament, said the government had "clear information that the intelligence regime of the Zionist regime and the CIA wanted to implement terrorist acts."

But Western intelligence agencies had conflicting information about whether Mohammadi, a particle physicist, was really contributing to the nuclear program. Iranian dissidents, meanwhile, said Mohammadi had been killed by the regime because he was a supporter of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, whom many believe actually won the 2009 Iranian presidential election before vote-tampering handed the victory to Ahmadinejad. A German-based opposition group released a photo of an alleged Arab hitman who had supposedly carried out Mohammadi's assassination on regime orders.

At Mohammadi's funeral, hundreds of regime loyalists waving anti-Israel banners packed the procession, where they clashed with supporters of Mousavi's Green Movement.

More than two years later, on May 15, 2012, the Iranian government executed 24-year-old Majid Jamali Fashi, who had been convicted of assassinating Mohammadi.

Iranian authorities claimed that Fashi, 24, was recruited and trained by Mossad and was paid $120,000 to kill Mohammadi. In January 2011, Iranian media had broadcast Fashi's confession, in which he said he "received different training including chasing, running, counter-chasing and techniques for planting bombs in a car" while in Tel Aviv. Fashi also confessed to receiving forged travel documents in Azerbaijan to travel to Israel, Iran's Press TV reported.

In a blog post Monday, however, London-based dissident Potkin Azarmehr pointed out that the Israeli passport displayed by Iranian television was stamped 2003, when Fashi was 15 years old, but bore the photo of a hirsute man in his 20s who is not looking directly into the camera. "No passport will be issued with such a picture, anywhere in the world," wrote Azarmehr. "You need a headshot where you are open-eyed AND looking into the camera."

Azarmehr believes that Fashi is not a Mossad agent and may never have been executed. In earlier posts, Azarmehr noted that Fashi showed no fear in a video allegedly recorded right before his execution, and that the only official photo taken of him after his hanging shows him from far away. The Iranian regime is not squeamish about showing clear pictures of convicts after their executions.

Other news outlets that have reported Azarmehr's suspicions, however, have focused on the alleged forgery of the passport. The Dubai-based news channel al-Arabiya claims that the passport displayed on Iranian television has a misplaced passport number and design features that indicate it dates from the 1990s. One blogger found a facsimile of an Israeli passport with the same dates and city of origin on Wikipedia and alleges that Fashi's passport is simply a crude copy. All the blacked-out areas on the Wikipedia image appear as blanks on Fashi's alleged passport.

The U.S. and the U.K. have denied any involvement in the deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists, while the Israeli government has declined to comment.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

AFP/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Pakistani doctor who aided American intelligence in its mission to kill Osama bin Laden has been convicted of high treason in his home country and sentenced to 33 years in prison plus a fine, Pakistani officials said Wednesday.

Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program on behalf of the CIA near the al Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in an attempt to collect DNA from bin Laden's relatives and verify that America's most wanted terrorist was indeed in the compound. On May 2, 2011, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs raided the compound and killed bin Laden.

Afridi's role, first reported by the New York Times in July 2011, was publicly confirmed by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in January when he told CBS News' 60 Minutes he was "very concerned" for Afridi.

"This was an individual who in fact helped provide intelligence that was very helpful with regards to this operation," Panetta, who was head of the CIA at the time of the operation, said then. "He was not in any way treasonous towards Pakistan, he was not doing anything that would in any way undermine Pakistan... Pakistan and the United States have a common cause against terrorism."

"For them to take this kind of action against someone who was helping to go after terrorism I just think is a real mistake on their part," he added.

One nurse who worked with Afridi but was unaware of the CIA plot and lost her job after the incident told ABC News that she considered him a traitor to Pakistan.

"It's good. He should be publicly hanged," the nurse said. "We do not consider him a hero. He is a traitor, a liar and a fraud. He deceived everyone."

Sources at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said Wednesday the State Department considers Afridi's case "an intelligence-related matter," and as such declined to comment. In the past, senior officials there have said they raise Afridi's case with the Pakistani's "all the time."

Wednesday, one diplomatic official admitted the verdict didn't come as a total surprise, saying "we knew they were going to hammer this guy for quite some time."

The conviction follows an October 2011 recommendation by the Pakistani commission set up to investigate the bin Laden raid that a case of "conspiracy against the state of Pakistan and high treason" be built against Afridi.

The doctor was convicted under Frontier Crimes Regulations, a separate set of laws from common Pakistani law that are enforced in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region. Though the FCR has reportedly come under fire from rights groups for alleged deficiencies in its legal process, a local lawyer told Pakistan's Dawn newspaper that had Afridi been convicted under Pakistani legal code, he would likely have been sentenced to death.

Afridi was taken to a prison in the central Peshawar region, but has the right to appeal the verdict, Dawn reported.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Karen Sutton - Limelight Marketing/Getty Images(LONDON) -- Stuntman Gary Connery plummeted from 2,400 feet — without a parachute — and landed completely unscathed in the middle of more than 18,000 cardboard boxes in Buckinghamshire, England, Wednesday.

Connery became the first person to jump out of an aircraft wearing only a wingsuit and land without a parachute, the jump organizers said.

After exiting the helicopter, Connery, 42, reached speeds of 80 mph and then slowed to 50 mph before hitting the boxes. The jump lasted about 50 seconds.

“I feel incredible, just completely elated,” said Connery. “I have been training and planning for this record attempt for many years now, and I am so proud to have achieved a world first.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

John Moore/Getty Images(CAIRO) -- Long lines snaked out of polling stations across Egypt Wednesday morning as Egyptians went to cast their ballots in the country's first presidential election since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last February. 

The sunny day was reflected in the attitudes of the voters who waited happily and calmly, often for hours, to cast their ballots for the 13 candidates running.

"I think everyone's upbeat, everyone's looking forward to the future," said Mohammed Kamel, the CEO of real estate development firm who was waiting to vote at a school in Giza.  "The country's sort of been on hold for the past 15 months, everyone's looking for stability."

The faces of the candidates stared out from campaign posters lining Cairo's congested streets.  Voters studied registration lists on walls to figure out where to go as soldiers and police kept the lines at polling stations moving as swiftly as they could.  Turnout was expected to top 60 percent among Egypt's 50 million voters.

Polling in the country has been inconsistent and is generally unreliable, but at least four frontrunners have emerged in the race to replace Mubarak and send the military, which has been ruling the country, back to their barracks.  They include Mubarak's former foreign minister, Amr Moussa; a former Muslim Brotherhood official, Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh; Mubarak's last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq; and the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi.

Many Cairo voters on Wednesday also expressed support for liberal candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi.  If no candidate gets 50 percent in the first round, the top two candidates will face each other in a run-off in mid-June.

Aside from the big question of who will be president, equally pressing are the questions of what his powers will be -- given that a new constitution has not yet been written -- and how prominent the role of the military will be.

But those concerns seemed to take a back seat to the significance of the day as the voters, most reticent to reveal who they were voting for, expressed hope for this new chapter in Egyptian history.

"I'm very happy, I feel freedom," said a female voter.  "Of course I'm optimistic, a new Egypt and a new era."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Anwar Hussein/WireImage(TORONTO) -- During a visit to a Toronto youth center this week, Prince Charles proved once again that it’s never too late to experiment with a new career.

The next king of England and his wife, Camilla, duchess of Cornwall, appeared at the Yonge Street Mission Tuesday, according to media reports, as part of a four-day trip to Canada for the Diamond Jubilee, celebrations surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s 60-year reign.

Charles successfully learned to scratch and fade a record as a deejay instructor let him try his hand at the turntables, according to the Telegraph.

It wasn’t the first time the royal showed his lighter, more fun side though. Earlier this month, the 63-year-old prince gave TV weather forecasters across the world a run for their money when he presented the weather forecast in Scotland during a visit to BBC headquarters in Glasgow.

In the past, Charles has also shown an appreciation for music — as well as a love for dancing.

In April 2011, the London Evening Standard reported that he and Kate Middleton, the wife of his eldest son, Prince William, had collaborated on the music for the upcoming nuptials by swapping iPods.

Also that month, a video of Charles break-dancing with young people in the 1980s made waves after it popped up on YouTube.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(KABUL, Afghanistan) -- Five aid workers have been kidnapped by armed gunmen in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, according to local officials.

The workers, which include two Western female doctors, are part of a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Medair that specializes in providing humanitarian assistance to regions that are difficult to access.

They were riding on horseback between villages, about 56 miles away from the provincial capital Faizabad, when they were abducted.  The area is not known for heavy insurgent activity. 

This is the same region where 10 aid workers, including six Americans, were killed by a Taliban ambush in 2010.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

IIPA via Getty Images(BAGHDAD) -- The White House warily welcomed news Tuesday of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency coming to an agreement to allow U.N. inspectors access to key nuclear scientists and research facilities that have been barred to them up to now.

Tehran is hoping that this move ahead of Wednesday's summit in Bahgdad with the U.S. and five other nations will give it the upper hand in talks to greatly reduce Iran's nuclear activities.

Obama administration press secretary Jay Carney suggested to reporters that the world has been down this road before with Iran.

While acknowledging that it was a step forward in the long dispute with Iran, Carney stressed, "Promises are one thing, actions and fulfillment of obligations are another."

Despite the prospects of open access to IAEA monitors, the so-called "5+1" bloc made up of the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia will press Iran to lower its uranium enrichment levels, making it impossible to create atomic bombs.

The Iranian government maintains that its program is purely for peaceful purposes, a claim doubted by virtually all of America's allies.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BEIRUT) -- Many in Lebanon now fear their country is being pulled into the ongoing conflict in neighboring Syria after reports that 13 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims were kidnapped by members of a rebel group.

News of the abduction sparked violent protests in Beirut, compelling Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah to appeal for calm.

Hezbollah supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who initiated a crackdown on political opponents in March 2011.  There are estimates of between 9,000 and 12,000 deaths since then.

According to state media in Lebanon, the pilgrims were returning from visiting sacred Shiite sites in Iran when their bus was confronted by gunmen from the Free Syria Army.

The women were released and brought to the Syrian city of Aleppo.  The kidnappers said they will free the men once the Syrian government releases their own prisoners, who are being jailed in Aleppo.

Meanwhile, forces loyal to al-Assad are believed to be undertaking a major operation in the area, presumably to get back the hostages.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Lewis Whyld/WPA Pool/Getty Images(LONDON) -- ABC News’ Katie Couric described her presentation to Queen Elizabeth II Tuesday on World News, saying her majesty was quiet, lovely and charming.

“She was really shmoozing with her guests -- although I don’t think she would use the word ‘shmoozing’ -- but she was chatting with her guests for nearly two hours this afternoon,” said Couric, who met the queen during a garden party at Buckingham Palace. “I had no idea what to expect. She looked beautiful.”

On May 29, Couric will anchor a two-hour show to mark the queen’s 60-year reign -- a celebration called the Diamond Jubilee.

The special will feature interviews with TRH, The Duke of Cambridge Prince William, Prince Harry, The Duke of York Prince Andrew, and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.  The broadcast will also give viewers special access inside Buckingham Palace.

Couric said Tuesday that Queen Elizabeth had expressed interest in watching the special next week.

“She approves everything that’s being done so I think she was well aware of our efforts and when she says she’d like to watch, I think she really means it and I hope she’ll watch the special when we send it to her,” Couric said.

“I’ve interviewed a lot of people...but interviewing royalty, you do get a bit nervous -- but they could not have been nicer,” she said.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Across Italy, police are cracking down on tax evaders, and are able to find them by the car they drive. Drivers of Lamborghinis and Ferraris are being pulled over and are asked for their licenses, registrations and tax registration IDs.
 
The country is currently $2.5 trillion dollars in debt. The specific targeting of drivers with luxury cars is a part of an ongoing tax war, with Italian tax officials trying to change a culture that has often prided itself on avoiding taxes. Police are pursuing drivers to make sure that they are declaring, and therefore paying taxes on, earnings that would allow them to afford luxury vehicles worth as much as half a million dollars. Since the new technocratic government took power in November, it has made tax collection a priority.
 
The crackdown seems to be working. Italian officials say they have discovered more than $12 billion in unpaid taxes already this year and more than 2,000 luxury car owners who underpaid their taxes. Some say the tax culture is now slowly changing.
 
But the crackdown has experienced a fierce backlash. Tax collection branches of the national revenue agency have been targets of terrorist attacks, with more than 250 in the last year.
 
Last week, Prime Minister Mario Monti visited the tax authority’s Rome headquarters and reaffirmed his support of the crackdown and said that rich Italians avoiding taxes hurts the poorest Italians and that tax cheats are like “giving poisoned bread to their children.”
 
According to one anonymous Ferrari owner who spoke with ABC News, people are very frightened by the tax checks and cross-referencing that tax agencies can perform and that many Ferrari owners have been trying to sell their cars in an attempt to keep a low profile. With the heightened increase in selling back a Ferrari, their value has dropped at least twenty percent.
 
With the government allowing tax authorities heightened access to bank accounts, “fiscal evasion is a bad thing for everyone, not a cunning habit anymore,” says Attilio Befera, the Italian tax agency’s director. “The Italians’ culture is changing.”
 
But do people really support this change as much as Befera insists? Everyone can be against tax evasion, especially when someone else is doing it.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(ISLAMABAD) -- A two-missile attack on a compound in northwestern Pakistan killed four alleged militants, according to preliminary reports.

The identities of those killed in Tuesday's air strike were not immediately known.

This latest offensive comes two days after Pakistan, at the NATO summit in Chicago, renewed its demand to stop drone attacks.

Pakistan maintains that drone attacks are impacting its relations with the United States, whereas the U.S. says that drone attacks are the most effective tool against militants hiding in the tribal areas.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly(WASHINGTON) -- U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker will step down this summer due to “health reasons,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland confirmed Tuesday. His departure will come "following the Kabul and Tokyo conferences,” Nuland said in a statement.

Nuland would not elaborate on what is ailing the U.S. ambassador, but she did say that Crocker’s departure was not driven by his "heavy workload," but instead something specific that he has been "working through."

Nuland said Crocker is making his health concerns public because he wants to make it clear that his leaving should not be seen "in any way as a lessening of his personal commitment and our national commitment to Afghanistan."

Crocker was appointed out of retirement in 2011.

Critics say one of the problems with the Afghan mission is the turnover of generals and top diplomats, few of which have lasted more than two years at their posts.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Counterfeit electronic parts from China are "flooding" into critical U.S. military systems, including special operations helicopters and surveillance planes, and are putting the nation's troops at risk, according to a new U.S. Senate committee report.

A year-long investigation conducted by the Senate Armed Services Committee found more than one million suspected counterfeit parts made their way into the Department of Defense's supply chain and were bound for use by "critical" military systems, according to the 70-plus-page document released Monday.  In addition to Navy helicopters and surveillance planes, the parts were slated to be put into the Air Force's newest cargo planes.

"The failure of a single electronic part can leave a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine vulnerable at the worst possible time," the report says.  "Unfortunately, a flood of counterfeit electronic parts has made it a lot harder to prevent that from happening."

Chinese companies were identified as the "primary source" of the counterfeit goods and the Chinese government was criticized for its alleged disinterest in cracking down on counterfeiting there.  The report said that Chinese companies take discarded electronic parts from all over the world, remove any identifying marks, wash and refurbish them, and then resell them as brand-new -- a practice that poses a "significant risk" to the performance of U.S. military systems.

But the committee also pointed a finger at the Pentagon and U.S.-based defense contractors that rely on "hundreds of unvetted independent distributors."

According to the document, the investigation "revealed failures by defense contractors and [the Department of Defense] to report counterfeit parts and gaps in DoD's knowledge of the scope and impact of such parts on defense systems."

"Our committee's report makes it abundantly clear that vulnerabilities throughout the defense supply chain allow counterfeit electronic parts to infiltrate critical U.S. military systems, risking our security and the lives of the men and women who protect it," said Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.).  "As directed by last year's Defense Authorization bill, the Department of Defense and its contractors must attack this problem more aggressively, particularly since counterfeiters are becoming better at shielding their dangerous fakes from detection."

A spokesperson for the Department of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this report, but another spokesperson told CNN the Pentagon was aware of the report and officials "looked forward to reviewing it."

"The Department takes very seriously the issue about counterfeit parts," Col. Melinda Morgan said.  "We are working aggressively to address this issue..."

Months after the Senate committee launched its investigation, the Pentagon said in November it was moving to protect against counterfeit parts by modifying policies and improving its internal process as well as working more closely with private companies in the industry.

Then, Defense spokesperson George Little noted that "there has been no loss of life or catastrophic mission failure as a result of these parts entering the supply chain."

Representatives for the Chinese government at its embassy in Washington, D.C. and consulate in New York did not immediately respond to request for comment on this report. 

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario) -- The man who climbed over a retaining wall before leaping into Horseshoe Falls in Ontario, Canada, in an apparent suicide attempt is at a hospital Tuesday with life-threatening injuries.

“He was obviously suffering,” Sgt. Chris Gallagher of the Niagara Parks Police said.  “He had a large gash on the back of his head.  He had other injuries to his ribs.  Mostly it was hypothermia, a little bit of shock.  Wasn’t able to speak very well."

“Our main thing was to get him stabilized and get him some medical assistance as soon as possible.  That’s why we called in the air.  As soon as we could get him up top, we could at least fly him to a medical facility,” Gallagher said.

Witnesses, many of them celebrating Canada’s Victoria Day, told the Niagara Parks Police Service on Monday that they saw the man, believed to be in his mid-30s, climb high above the Canadian side of the falls and jump.

He later appeared in the lower Niagara River basin near the Journey Behind the Falls observation deck.

“I saw the guy, he was on the river already floating going down on the fall,” once witness told ABC News.

The man improbably survived the 180-foot drop into the rocky depths of the falls in waters that average 30 to 40 degrees this time of year.  The water speeds by at close to 70 miles per hour, with more than six million cubic feet of water rushing over the brink every minute.

He managed to swim to the shore, collapsing on a bed of rocks.  He reportedly was found by park police before he collapsed.  He was lifted out of the falls by a crane and then taken to a Hamilton-area hospital with life-threatening injuries.

“It is a very difficult slope from the location he was at to the base of the falls,” Lt. Chief Dan Orescanin of the Niagara Falls, Ontario, Fire Department said.  “It is very difficult to traverse, so we used the aerial ladders to bring him up.  We sent seven firefighters over.  Six of them went down and one of them went down with the basket.”

The Niagara Falls Review said the unidentified man’s leap was the fourth time a person had survived a jump over the falls without a barrel.

Seven-year-old Roger Woodward’s jump was dubbed the “Miracle at Niagara” in 1960 after he survived the falls with just a life vest on. Kirk Jones survived the deadly drop in 2003 and an unidentified Canadian man also withstood the perilous plunge in 2009.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Humans love to line up in front of the glass walls at penguin zoo exhibits, staring at the antics of the black-and-white, two-legged creatures.

But what about when the tides are turned, when penguins get a chance to meet the strange humans, observing them for the first time?

That moment was captured on camera by a man traveling to penguins’ home habitat, Antarctica.

“I was on a tour with friends in Antarctica when we visited a penguin colony,” visitor, Joel Oleson, explained.  “Our guide told us not to approach the penguins, but that it was okay for them to approach us.”

“I laid down to seem non-threatening, and the baby penguin approached me,” said Oleson, a self-described “travel junkie” who has traveled to over 100 countries since 2008 and blogs about his adventures at Travelingepic.com.  Watch the video to see what happened next:

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio