A senior Pentagon official denied Wednesday that a special Pentagon unit mold US intelligence　findings on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda in order to make a case for the US war.

"This suggestion that we said to them this is what we're looking for, go find it, is precisely the inaccuracy that we are here to rebut," said Doug Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy.

He was referring to news reports that a Pentagon analytical unit set up after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks was directed to find evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and its connections with al-Qaeda network.

Feith said the mission of the team, which began with two people but grew to include about half a dozen, was not focused mainly on Iraq but rather on global terrorist networks and how they related to each other.

The group "came up with some interesting observations about the linkages between Iraq and al-Qaeda," but that was only an incidental finding of a broader look at intelligence on international terrorism, he said.

The Bush administration had cited Iraq's harboring and development of weapons of mass destruction as the key reason for the US war against Baghdad. More than one month after President George W. Bush declared major combat was over, however, no such weapons have been found.

Feith denied Pentagon officials had pressured the Central Intelligence Agency to slant its findings to support the administration's justification for its war against Iraq.

He said he felt compelled to hold a news conference in order to lay to rest some stories that have been circulating about the Defense Department that are not true and are beginning to achieve the status of urban legends."

Amid mounting questions over pre-war claims by the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, US lawmakers are pressing for congressional hearings to probe whether US intelligence was manipulated to provide a rationale for the war.

Landslides kill three, 40 missing in Venezuela

Two girls and one woman died, while 40 other people remained missing because of landslides in Venezuela, a report by rescue officials said on Wednesday.

The landslides destroyed several houses and blocked an important road following torrential rains.

The report said the rains produced mud slides which dragged down houses in Merida state and in the neighboring state of Barinas.

The slides blocked some roads linking both states, making rescue tasks more difficult.

"We've already found three bodies," said Ramon Frias, Barinas Civil Protection Director. "There are 40 people missing."

Merida Governor Florencio Porras declared a state of emergency on Tuesday night. He said the sanitary situation in the area was already under control and the injured were taken to Barinas hospitals.

Television reports said that at least seven individuals were taken to hospitals.

Canada to remove trade barriers to Iraq

Canada will remove trade, transportation and financial barriers to Iraq now that the United Nations Security Council has lifted its sanctions, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham announced Wednesday.

"Canada welcomed the Security Council's decision to lift sanctions," Graham said in a statement.

"By rapidly taking measures to implement the council's decision, Canada is signaling its serious commitment to upholding UN resolutions and to helping the Iraqi people rebuild their society and economy."

Canadian International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said in a statement that the UN move will permit Canadian companies to participate in reconstruction efforts, although many of those contracts have already been gobbled up by US and British firms.

UN Resolution 1483, adopted May 22, lifts sanctions that had prohibited almost all commercial and financial transactions with Iraq since 1991.

Explosion injures 17 in central Paris

An explosion occurred in an office building in central Paris on Wednesday morning, injuring at least 17 people, police and firefighters said.

The blast, which took place at 0952 GMT in rue d'Uzes in the second arrondissement (district), caused the office building close to the stock exchange partially collapsed. The Paris stock exchange is only a few blocks away to the building.

Some 300 firefighters have rushed to the scene to put out the fire and rescue people out of the building, which houses business offices of lawyers, accountants and telecommunications, local TV reported.

According to emergency services, four of the casualties were seriously wounded and had been receiving timely treatment. Their conditions were stable and their lives were not threatened.

The cause of the incident is still unknown. But a police spokesman said that it was probably a gas explosion, not a bomb blast.

The spokesman's comments were echoed by Paris police chief Jean-Paul Proust, who said the cause was "very probably accidental."

He confirmed that "there is no death" from the explosion, which he said affected all the apartments in the building.

The firefighters are still conducting room-by-room searches, he added.

Togo's president wins reelection

Togo's President Gnassingbe Eyadema, Africa's longest serving leader, has won another five-year term in office, according to official results of the June 1 election released here Wednesday by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The electoral commission said Eyadema took 57.2 percent of votes in Sunday's poll.

Eyadema's closest rival, the opposition Union of Forces for Change (UFC) party candidate Emmanuel Bob Akitani, obtained 34.14 percent.

The UFC had fielded Akitani as its candidate after the party's leader, Gilchrist Olympio, was barred from taking part in the election.

Olympio was seen as the only candidate capable of posing a threat to Eyadema in the presidential contest.

Eyadema led what was postcolonial Africa's first coup, in 1963.He took power four years later.