The United States Monday unveiled a series of tough sanctions aimed at cracking down on international organized crime, including gangs from Russia, Japan and Mexico and the Italian Mafia.

The Japanese Yakuza, the Camorra from Naples and Mexico's Zetas as well as The Brothers' Circle, based mainly in the former Soviet Union, were among those slapped with economic sanctions, the White House said.

A Guinean woman who has accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in a New York hotel was on the offensive Monday, saying she wanted him to go to jail.

"Because of him, they call me a prostitute," Nafissatou Diallo told Newsweek magazine in her first public interview since the alleged attack by the former powerful French politician in a Manhattan hotel suite in May.

Iran on Sunday accused arch-foes the United States and Israel of masterminding the assassination of a scientist in Tehran, Dariush Rezaei-Nejad, who was reportedly associated with the defense ministry.

"The American-Zionist terrorist act yesterday against one of the country's scientists is yet another sign of the Americans' degree of animosity," speaker Ali Larijani told parliament on Sunday.

The United States said Sunday it has invited a top North Korean envoy to New York for "exploratory talks" on the possible resumption of the six-party negotiations on denuclearization.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the North's vice foreign minister and former nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-Gwan, would visit the U.S. at the "end of next week".

Iraq's Justice Ministry said Friday that plans to transfer a top Hizbullah commander who's being held in Baghdad from U.S. to Iraqi custody have been put on hold.

The turnabout comes as 20 U.S. senators ask the Pentagon to take "whatever steps you can" to prevent the transfer out of fear that the militant, Ali Mussa Daqduq, will escape or be released by Iraq's government.

Attitudes toward Muslims have become slightly more positive in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Russia compared with five years ago, although negative views between Muslim countries and the West persist on both sides, a Pew Center survey found.

The survey, by Pew's Global Attitudes Project, found majorities of Muslims surveyed in five of six Muslim-dominant countries and the Palestinian territories described non-Muslim Westerners as selfish and greedy.

Iran may consider dialogue with the United States as long as it is between "equals" and Washington respects its people's rights, Foreign Minster Ali Akbar Salehi said in an interview Friday.

"We have not ruled out establishing relations with other countries barring the Zionist regime (Israel), but it is possible that our relations are in an unusual situation with countries like the United States," Salehi told the official IRNA news agency.

A U.S. Congress panel on Thursday rejected a proposal to cut off all aid to Pakistan due to concerns over the country's relationship with Islamic militants after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee easily rejected the measure, with five lawmakers voting yes and 39 voting no. But the bill in its current form would still impose tighter controls over aid, making it contingent on measurable progress by Pakistan.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday said Syria cannot return to the way it was before unprecedented anti-regime protests, but how the situation would evolve remained unclear.

"We have said that Syria can't go back to the way it was before," Clinton said on the sidelines of a meeting of the Libyan contact group in Istanbul.

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday issued a statement condemning "in the strongest terms" the attacks against the U.S. and French embassies in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The statement which was approved by all 15 council members said the attacks damaged the embassies and injured diplomatic personnel.