△ Turkey, Brazil Seal Deal on Iran Nuclear Fuel Swap

Turkey said on Sunday Iran had agreed on a nuclear fuel swap deal which could help end Tehran's stand-off with the West over its atomic programme.

Full details of the agreement were not immediately released by Turkish and Brazilian officials mediating in Iran's dispute with leading world powers, who suspect Tehran of covertly developing a nuclear bomb.

Turkey's foreign ministry said a formal announcement might be made on Monday after any final revisions by the Brazilian and Iranian presidents and the Turkish prime minister.

"Yes, it has been reached after almost 18 hours of negotiations," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters in Tehran when asked if there would be an agreement.

Earlier, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan flew to Tehran to join Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who has been negotiating with Iranian officials in what Western and Russian authorities have said is probably the last chance to avoid new U.N. sanctions against Iran.

A U.N.-backed deal offered Iran last October to ship 1,200 kg of its low enriched uranium -- enough for a single bomb if purified to a high enough level -- to Russia and France to make into fuel for a Tehran research reactor.

Iran later said it would only swap its LEU for higher grade material and only on its own soil, conditions other parties in the deal said were unacceptable. It denies seeking to build an atomic bomb.

Lula also told reporters after holding talks with Iranians that "the level of hope has increased."

△ BP Cagey as Oil Tube Registers 'Some' Success

 BP succeeded Sunday in capturing "some" oil and gas by inserting a mile-long tube into the main Gulf of Mexico leak, but would not say if it was just a dribble or a significant percentage of the gusher.

Despite the uncertainty, it was still the first tangible sign of success in more than three weeks of efforts to prevent an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil from spewing unabated into the sea each day and feeding a massive slick off Louisiana.

BP senior executive vice president Kent Wells refused to be drawn on quantity, but confirmed that after a temporary hitch overnight in which the tube became dislodged overnight, siphoning operations were ongoing once more.

A BP statement said simply that the four-inch diameter tube inserted into the 21-inch leaking pipe using undersea robots had captured "some amounts of oil and gas."

Wells added that the BP crews "don't have any idea at this point" how much crude is being collected and would only have a better estimate in the coming days.

"The oil was stored on board the Discoverer Enterprise drill ship 5,000 feet above on the water's surface, and natural gas was burned through a flare system on board the ship," the statement said.

The process, which saw oil sucked up as if through a straw to the giant ship, comes after President Barack Obama blasted the companies involved for seeking to shift blame and shirk responsibility.

△ Volcanic Ash to Close London's Heathrow Airport

Europe's busiest airport was set to close early Monday morning as a dense crowd of volcanic ash drifts across England from Iceland, aviation authorities said.

The airspace over London's Heathrow Airport will be closed at 1 a.m. Monday (0000 GMT; 7 p.m. EDT), Britain's National Air Traffic Service said in a statement late Sunday night.

The restrictions affecting Heathrow — as well as Gatwick, Stansted, and London City airports — will be in place until at least 7 a.m. Monday, the aviation authority said.

Airports across Britain and Ireland were closed for much of Sunday because of the drifting ash. The shifting of the no-fly zone southward will allow airports in northern England — including the key cities of Manchester and Liverpool — to reopen after 1 a.m.

But all airports in Northern Ireland, as well as some Scottish facilities, will remain shut.

In Ireland, Dublin's international airport closed early Sunday evening until at least 12 p.m. Monday (1100 GMT, 7 a.m. EDT). Some airports in Ireland's west were closed and will reopen at different times Monday, but Shannon and southern Cork were open "until further notice."

The British air traffic agency said the ash cloud was changing shape and moving south, toward Oxford, England, 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of London. Britain's weather service says the northwest winds should shift midweek, redirecting the ash away from Britain.

German authorities sent up two test flights Sunday to measure the ash cloud, one from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the other from Lufthansa, the country's biggest airline.

All the data from both flights was immediately sent to aviation authorities in the U.K, the Netherlands and Germany, said aerospace center spokesman Andreas Schuetz.

△ Chavez asks Venezuelans to tweet on speculators

President Hugo Chavez urged supporters to use Twitter to blow the whistle on currency speculators on Sunday and announced that police raids on illegal traders would continue as Venezuela's government tries to defend the embattled bolivar.

The socialist leader asked Venezuelans to send messages identifying illegal traders. He described them as "thieves" who must be punished for currency speculation, which he blames for rapidly rising inflation.

"My Twitter account is open for you to denounce them," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program. "We're going to launch several raids. We've already launched some raids, thanks to the complaints from the people."

Venezuelan authorities began raiding currency trading offices last week and arrested a man who posts black-market rates for currency on the Internet. Jaime Renteria, 52, is apparently the first person arrested for illegal currency trading under Chavez's new crackdown, which has been prompted by a sharp decline in the free-market value of the bolivar.