Freed reporter Saberi arrives in Austria from Iran

VIENNA - US-born journalist Roxana Saberi arrive in Austria on Friday from Iran, four days after the authorities freed them from Tehran prison and lifted its eight-year sentence for espionage.

"We can confirm that they arrived in Vienna," said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Vienna. Another U.S. official said Saberi was expected to stay in the Austrian capital for a few days. U.S. officials further comment.

Earlier, the Iranian lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, Reuters said the 32-year-old freelance journalist in Tehran, had an overnight flight for Europe and will continue in the United States.

U.S. National Public Radio said Saberi was traveling with her parents. It also has U.S. and Iranian citizenship and worked for the BBC and NPR.

It was in January to work in Iran after their press credentials had expired. She was later accused of espionage, found guilty and for eight years in prison. She was released from prison after her sentence on Monday cut on appeal to a suspension of two years.

"She was good, but sad that they do not return to Iran soon to do the reporting," Khorramshahi added.

Saberi other lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, said on Tuesday the change in the ruling was by a different interpretation of the relevant legislation not because of political considerations.

But her release on Monday removed a potential obstacle to the

President Barack Obama's attempts to thaw U.S. relations with the Islamic Republic after three decades of enmity.

Saberi Obama welcomed the release as a "humanitarian gesture".

The two countries are in dispute over Iran's nuclear program which the West fears is aimed at making nuclear bombs. Iran says it is for generating electricity.

The United States had said the charges were baseless and had demanded the immediate release Saberi. Tehran does not recognize dual citizenship, and told Washington not to disrupt.

Obama, Iran has a new beginning in relations if Iran says Washington really begin to change policy.

Analysts and diplomats have said Saberi arrest should not be interpreted as a sign that Obama rejects Iran's Overture, but they say, and their release was influenced by it.

Some saw the arrest as a warning to foreign media in Iran presidential elections in June, while others say that he had an offer from hardliners to obstruct any thaw in US-Iran relations or to use it as a "trump card".

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WHO chief warns against false security about H1N1 flu

The World Health Organization on Friday warned against a false sense of security and seemingly dwindling light outbreaks of avian flu H1N1, which says that the worst may not be longer than for the newly discovered virus.

WHO Director General Margaret Chan, the Organization of the United Nations, the pandemic alert to the second highest level, so it remained "considerable uncertainty" about the exposure, the specific threats in Southeast Asia.

"We meet at a time of crisis, the global impact," she told an intergovernmental meeting on pandemic event at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.

The meeting is to tackle the sensitive issue of virus sharing, the countries in which the biological samples to the international community for use by pharmaceutical companies and decision makers, the vaccine formulation JAB ingredients.

At the height of fears about bird flu, Indonesia had refused to H5N1 virus samples with no guarantees that any vaccines developed from them will be made available to poorer countries at an affordable price.

Leading decision-makers including the flu vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis and Baxter International expect the WHO guidelines, whether to start mass production of vaccines against H1N1, which may require less seasonal flu shots.

On Friday, Chan said countries with H1N1 infections for their "exchange of samples for risk assessment and the seed vaccine." Another top WHO officials, Keiji Fukuda, there have been "fast and wide distribution of samples to date.

The participants in the meeting - a precursor to next week's annual World Health Assembly - try to reach an agreement on standards for transparency, trust and sovereignty in relation to virus sample sharing.

"I hope the result is something really balanced, and we can for a long time," said Fukuda.

According to the latest WHO count, more than 7,500 people in 34 countries were infected with the strain of a genetic mix of swine, bird and human viruses. The symptoms are easy for most patients, but 65 people have died from the flu, especially in Mexico.

Chan said the WHO's leadership was aware of parts of Southeast Asia saw that major outbreaks of the H5N1 bird flu virus - a virus that can kill if it's from birds to humans, but has simply not among the people until today.

A mixture of H5N1 and H1N1 viruses could have a major influence, she said, while stressing: "I am not saying that will happen."

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Global unemployment rate to climb in 2008 - ILO

GENEVA - More people will be out of work in 2008 as a result of global economic cooling, and any major slowdown could cause disruption and further hike unemployment, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said on Thursday.

In a report issued in the wake of heavy losses in world stock markets, and amid growing fears of worldwide recession, the United Nations agency said the world unemployment rate would climb to 6.1 percent this year from 6.0 percent in 2007.

Jose Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, head of the ILO's employment sector, said the jitters that bled world markets this week had not yet trickled through to employment figures, which are considered a lagging indicator of world economic health.

But he said the 2008 projections may turn out to be overly bright if the world economy expands by less than the 4.8 percent estimated by the International Monetary Fund.

"This scenario ... would obviously be worse if global growth turns out to be less than predicted," Salazar-Xirinachs told a news briefing in Geneva, where the ILO is headquartered.

"It is very likely that there will be revisions of rates of growth downward," he said.

In its Global Employment Trends report, the ILO estimated that 3 billion people aged 15 and older had jobs in 2007, up nearly 2 percent from the year before and more than 17 percent higher than in 1997.

There were 190 million unemployed in 2007.

Among those employed, about 487 million people did not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the $1-a-day poverty line, and 1.3 billion earned less than $2 a day.

"Despite working, more than 4 out of 10 workers are poor," the report concluded.

ILO economist Dorothea Schmidt said that productivity gains during the recent period of strong global economic growth meant there were fewer jobs created than necessary to create a cushion for any rocky period ahead.

"We have not created enough decent jobs," Schmidt told reporters. "The lack of productive jobs could mean a constraint for development during difficult times."

In addition to looming economic trouble, the ILO said rapid technological advances would present a major challenge for workers in the year ahead, particularly in rich markets such as the United States, Europe and Japan where jobs are increasingly being moved to poorer countries with cheaper labour costs.

"It is important for workers to be ready and able to adjust quickly to change and stiffer competition," the report said. "This can be fostered by not only giving them the right skills, but also giving them a feeling of security to handle the mental stress caused by changes."

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