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Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president for a new four-year term, describing him as a ‘courageous’ man but telling him to listen to his critics.
   In a sign of the escalating feud between rival political factions over Ahmadinejad’s hotly disputed re-election, key opposition leaders were absent from the ceremony, state television said.
   Khamenei, who has given his full backing to Ahmadinejad despite a political spat, described his protege as a ‘courageous, astute and hardworking,’ and hailed his ‘unprecedented’ victory on June 12.
   But he warned Ahmadinejad that the ‘angry, wounded opposition’ would continue challenging his government and told him to heed the views of his critics, in a possible reference to a row between the president and his own conservative supporters.
   Ahmadinejad, 52, whose first four years put him on a collision course with the West, again lashed out at ‘selfish and meddling’ foreign governments over the election crisis.
   ‘You do not want a new model of divine democracy rising in the world. You wanted to divert global opinion from the collapse of capitalism, so you insulted the Iranian people,’ the Fars news agency quoted him as saying.
   ‘Whether you like it or not, the sun of justice has dawned upon the world and the government of justice will prevail.’
   The June poll set off the worst turmoil in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, with deadly street protests, a raft of political trials and increasing divisions among the ruling elite.
   Among those who did not attend Monday’s ceremony were Ahmadinejad’s defeated rivals Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, along with powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami.
   Ahmadinejad, who is to be sworn in before parliament on Wednesday, has also come under fire from his own hardline camp, which has questioned his loyalty to Khamenei in a row over a key political appointment.
   His landslide victory was met with a vast outpouring of public anger and opposition complaints the vote was rigged. At least 30 people were killed and several thousand protesters rounded up, including reform figures and journalists.
   Ahmadinejad’s re-election has also created a rift among the clergy, with several senior clerics siding with the opposition and condemning the post-election violence and the regime’s treatment of its critics.
   The authorities hit back with a heavy-handed crackdown on protesters, whom they accuse of seeking to overthrow the regime with a ‘velvet revolution’.
   On Saturday, around 100 people were put on trial in a revolutionary court, a move slammed by the opposition which accused the authorities of torture but welcomed by hardliners who in turn accused Mousavi and Khatami of treason.
   Another 10 people went on trial on Sunday.

Supporters of ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya mobilised Monday to prepare new protests calling for his return to power more than a month after the military threw him out of the country.
   Foreign envoys meanwhile were set to meet Monday with the Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias, a Nobel peace laureate spearheading an effort to negotiate a deal between Zelaya and the interim government led by Roberto Micheletti.
   Zelaya supporters said they would begin a five-day march on the country’s two main cities starting Wednesday despite a crackdown threat from the de facto government and the death of a teacher who was shot at a protest last week.
   ‘There will be two marches with people from all over the country. One will go to San Pedro Sula and another to Tegucigalpa,’ Juan Barahona, of the National Resistance Against the Honduran Coup, said.
   Arias was to discuss Honduras with Organisation of American States secretary general Jose Miguel Insulza and Spain’s deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega.
   Enrique Iglesias, a top official with the Organisation of Ibero-American States, was also expected to attend the meeting.
   For his part, Zelaya, who spent much of last week on the Nicaraguan side of the border with Honduras, was in Managua preparing for a trip to Mexico for a meeting Tuesday with president Felipe Calderon.
   Zelaya was bundled out of his bed at gunpoint and kicked out of the country in the June 28 coup, which has been condemned by the international community.
   The Mexican president in turn will meet the US president, Barack Obama, and the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, at an August 9-10 summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, with the simmering Honduran crisis likely to be a hot issue.
   Washington has said that Zelaya is the country’s only president, and US ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens flew to Nicaragua and travelled to the border to meet the deposed president on July 29.
   Micheletti expressed his displeasure in a Saturday interview with local HRN news.
   ‘We are extremely surprised with the attitude taken by the (US) ambassador, and we call on him for a correction; he cannot be interfering in issues that are strictly of Honduras,’ Micheletti said.
   ‘There is no country or people powerful enough in the world to bend us,’ he added.

An Ivory Coast village held two days of funeral ceremonies at the weekend in honour of Michael Jackson, who had been declared a ‘son’ and ‘prince’ of Krindjabo during a visit in 1992.
   The day after the pop music legend’s death in Los Angeles on June 25, leaders of the Akan ethnic group living in the southeast of the west African country tried to claim his body as their ‘son’ so that he might be buried in Krindjabo in accordance with tradition.
   Although their request was rejected, they nevertheless decided to say farewell to Jackson, who had been given the title ‘Prince of Sanwi’.
   The president of the organising committee Olivier Kattie said genealogical research had shown that Jackson was descended from the royal line of the Sanwi.
   Flanked by a large escort, the King of the Sanwi, Amon N’Douffou V, presided over the ceremonies that he launched on Saturday before a crowd of almost 2,000 people in Kings Park, the village stadium.
   Under sullen skies, traditional dance groups and Jackson lookalikes paid tribute to the star.
   After Sunday mass, visitors and residents of this village located in deep forest again converged on the park.
   Marthe Affoua, a 27-year-old hairdresser, was 10 when she took part in events marking Jackson’s visit to the Ivorian village. She proudly brandished a photograph showing her and three others with the singer.
   ‘He asked each one of us how we were and we gave the thumbs-up sign,’ she recalled.
   Restaurants and businesses stood to gain from the general emotion and undreamed-of publicity handed to the village.
   T-shirts with pictures of Jackson and proclaiming ‘Krindjabo weeps for you, the Sanwi will never forget you’ sold like hot cakes.
   The festivities, which were supposed to end with an announcement ‘in accordance with laws and customs’ on who would be crowned Jackson’s successor, ended Sunday afternoon amid confusion.
   After two hours of discussions, the royal family finally abandoned attempts to carry out the ritual, saying it was because some members of the family were absent.
   ‘The king has suspended the appointment, deferring it until a later date,’ the king’s cabinet chief Francois Anoh Kouao told the agency.

Tareq Aziz, Iraq’s former deputy prime minister was sentenced on Sunday to seven years in jail for his role in the forced displacement of Kurds from oil-prosperous northeastern Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
   In March he was given a 15-year sentence for his role in the killing of dozens of traders for breaking state price controls in 1992. Two lawyers said the sentences would be added together so 73-year-old Aziz would serve 22 years in jail.
   The March ruling was the first time Aziz, who also served as foreign minister and was the international face of the Saddam regime, was convicted of a crime since giving himself up to the US troops in April 2003, two weeks after the former Iraqi leader’s rule ended.
   ‘Because you committed, in partnership (with others), the crime of forced displacement against the Kurdish people, the court has decided to condemn you ... to seven years in prison,’ judge Mahmoud Salih said, giving the jury’s verdict.
   Aziz’s sentence in March came less than two weeks after the same Iraqi high tribunal cleared Aziz, of any role in killing and displacing Shia Muslims in 1999. That trial saw Saddam’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majeed, receive a third death sentence.

Spain’s prime minister broke off his holiday Sunday to inspect the devastation caused by forest fires raging on an island in the Canaries which have forced thousands to flee their homes.
   In Greece meanwhile, firefighters supported by water-dropping planes were battling forest fires in the southern Peloponnese peninsula and the northeast region of Kavala.
   The two countries have been among the worst hit by wildfires that have swept across southern Europe in the past two weeks amid sizzling temperatures and fierce winds.
   Around 500 firefighters, forest rangers and soldiers fought the flames on Spain’s small holiday island of La Palma and planes dumped water in an effort to bring the blazes under control.
   Fanned by strong winds, the fires have now destroyed between 1,500 and 2,000 hectares of pine forest and dozens of homes since they broke out Friday night, local authorities said.

North Korea was silent Monday on South Korea’s renewed call for the release of a fishing boat and four crew members which strayed across the maritime border four days ago.
   ‘The North Korean side simply replied that the investigation was underway,’ said unification ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-Joo, after maritime authorities of the two countries communicated with each other early Monday.
   Seoul says the 29-ton squid fishing boat drifted into the North’s waters off the east coast Thursday due to a malfunctioning navigation system.
   Pyongyang on Saturday said the boat had ‘illegally intruded’ into its territorial waters, its first direct official response to the incident.
   ‘A relevant institution is conducting concrete investigation into it at present,’ the communist state’s official news agency said.
   The two countries have remained technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict, but have sometimes returned each other’s craft in the past.
   Two South Korean trawlers strayed into the North’s waters in April 2005 and December 2006 and were returned after five days and 18 days respectively.
   But tensions have been mounting this year after nuclear and missile tests by the North and tougher UN Security Council sanctions in response.
   The North has since March 30 detained a South Korean worker at the Seoul-funded Kaesong industrial estate, accusing him of insulting its system and urging a North Korean worker to defect.

Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos said Monday she wanted a reconciliation with the family of Corazon Aquino, as the ex-president’s coffin was taken on a solemn procession through Manila.
   Aquino, whose husband was assassinated by the forces of dictator Ferdinand Marcos after returning home from exile in 1983, died at the weekend following a battle with cancer.
   ‘I can feel the pain, the loss of a loved one, so I am in prayer. If these two families reconciled, there will be a miracle for the Philippines,’ the former first lady said on television.
   The Aquino family earlier said members of the Marcos family could attend the wake for the former president, who died Saturday at the age of 76, but should not expect a warm welcome.
   The youngest of Aquino’s children, Kristina Bernadette Aquino, thanked Marcos for offering Sunday prayers for her mother.
   ‘I never thought the time would come (that I would say this), but thank you to the Marcoses for really praying for mum,’ she said.
   Marcos’s aides have said the former first lady or her children may attend Aquino’s wake, although there were no concrete plans.
   The comments came as preparations for Aquino’s funeral on Wednesday gathered pace.
   An open truck carrying her coffin and decorated with yellow flowers symbolising the ‘People Power’ revolution that swept her to power started its three-hour procession through the streets of Manila.
   Traffic was at a standstill while mourners threw yellow confetti and flowers onto the cortege as it passed through the capital on its way to Manila Cathedral, where Aquino’s body was to lie in state until her funeral.
   Aquino will then be buried beside her husband, Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino.
   Outside the cathedral around 1,000 policemen were setting up steel barricades to contain the thousands of people expected to gather there later.
   Tens of thousands of Filipinos, many in tears, lined the streets as the body of Aquino was moved to the capital’s cathedral in an emotional procession Monday.
   Traffic ground to a halt and confetti rained down from office blocks as people braved intermittent rain to get near Aquino’s coffin, lying on a bed of yellow flowers atop a flatbed truck.
   Mourners from all walks of life offered silent payers and recalled fond memories of the deeply religious woman who, even in death, wore her trademark yellow dress, and clutched a rosary with a golden cross.
   Many wore pins and shirts with pictures of Aquino, whose death sparked tributes from around the world.
   Among those who had visited her body was Wan Azizah Ismail, the wife of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who called Aquino a source of inspiration for Asian leaders.
   The East Timor president, Jose Ramos-Horta, was also expected to view the coffin at the cathedral, friends and family said.
   John Bolinao, 43, stood four hours late Sunday to see Aquino’s body.

The Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on Monday vowed to stand down if indicted on graft charges, raising the spectre of disarray in the four-month-old right-wing coalition government.
   But the English-language Jerusalem Post said an indictment would have little direct impact on Israel’s foreign relations and Middle East peace efforts because of the limited diplomatic role it said Lieberman has played.
   If Attorney General Menahem Mazuz ‘decides to indict me after hearing me out, I will step down (as foreign minister) and within the next four or five months I will quit as a member of parliament,’ the firebrand Lieberman told journalists.
   But he also remained upbeat. ‘I am convinced that next year, and in two years too, I will still be foreign affairs minister,’ he said.
   The police on Sunday recommended indicting the 51-year-old minister on charges of bribery, money laundering and obstruction of justice.
   Lieberman, a controversial minister who leads Yisrael Beitenu, the second largest party in the ruling coalition, has denied any wrongdoing and claimed the police investigation is politically motivated.
   In the coming days the police will submit the recommendation to the attorney general, who will then decide whether to press charges.
   Lieberman is suspected of receiving about 2.5 million dollars in illegal campaign donations through bank accounts opened by his daughter in Cyprus.
   ‘The consequences, of course, could affect the stability of the government,’ the Maariv newspaper commented, adding however that it remains unclear whether Lieberman would pull his party out of the coalition if indicted.
   With 15 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, Yisrael Beitenu is the main coalition partner with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party.
   The Jerusalem Post commented that the direct impact on foreign relations would be minimal if Lieberman is indicted.

A referendum is under way in New Zealand on whether it should remain a criminal offence to smack children, with polls showing overwhelming support to again legalise corporal punishment.
   The three-week postal ballot, which ends on August 21, seeks to overturn a 2007 change to the Crimes Act which divided the country by making it illegal for parents to use force against children for correction purposes.
   New Zealand is one of 24 countries to ban smacking. The government and main opposition parties say the new law is working, and while the referendum is part of the democratic process the result is not binding.
   The postal ballot referendum asks: ‘Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?’
   A Television One News Colmar Brunton poll, released at the start of the vote, showed 83 per cent of New Zealanders believed parents should be allowed to smack children under some circumstances.
   The aim of the 2007 law was to curb New Zealand’s high rate of child abuse and stop people using ‘parental discipline’ as a defence against assault charges.
   Supporters of the law said it gave babies and children the same legal protection against assault as adults, while opponents said it led to ‘good families’ being prosecuted.
   The prime minister, John Key, maintained Monday that regular police reviews showed the ban on smacking worked, but he said if that changed then the result of the referendum would be considered.
   ‘I’ve always argued that if the law doesn’t work we will change it,’ he told Radio Newstalk ZB.
   ‘If an overwhelming bulk of New Zealanders vote no (in the referendum) then what that should do, I think, is give parliament the strength of courage to change the law if it starts not working.’
   The referendum was approved a year ago after opponents of the anti-smacking law received 310,000 signatures on a petition calling for a ballot, well above the required 285,000 or 10 per cent of registered voters.

A Sudanese journalist facing 40 lashes for wearing ‘indecent’ trousers vowed on the eve of her judgment that she is ready to be whipped 40,000 times in her bid to change the country’s harsh laws.
   Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who works for the media department of the United Nations Mission in Sudan, is to be judged on Tuesday after waiving the immunity granted to the UN workers.
   She is to be judged under Article 152 of Sudanese law, which promises 40 lashes for anyone who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing.’
   Hussein, who is in her 30s and whose husband died of kidney failure, told AFP in a telephone interview: ‘I’m ready for anything to happen. I’m absolutely not afraid of the verdict.’
   The police arrested Hussein and 12 other women wearing trousers at a Khartoum restaurant on July 3. Two days later 10 of the women accepted a punishment of 10 lashes, but Hussein is appealing in a bid to eliminate such rough justice.
   The other two women are also facing charges.
   ‘If I’m sentenced to be whipped, or to anything else, I will appeal. I will see it through to the end, to the constitutional court if necessary,’ Hussein said.
   ‘And if the constitutional court says the law is constitutional, I’m ready to be whipped not 40 but 40,000 times.’

Malaria, which affects some 500 million people a year worldwide, was first transmitted to humans by chimpanzees, according to a US study out on Monday.
   The origins of mosquito-carried malaria has long been unclear, and has lead scientists to come up with several inconclusive theories.
   Researchers knew that chimpanzees carry a parasite — Plasmodium reichenowi — that is similar to the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, but they were not sure how the two strains were related.
   One hypothesis suggested that they had evolved from a common strain over millions of years in their respective host species.
   Another theory held that the parasite first emerged in humans and was transmitted to chimpanzees, where it gradually evolved into a separate strain.
   But the authors of the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, examined a third possibility, using samples taken from wild and wild-born chimpanzees in Cameroon and the Ivory Coast.
   They identified several new parasites among the chimpanzees they sampled, indicating that the malaria parasite first jumped from chimpanzees to humans.
   The study, led by Francisco Ayala of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Irvine, suggests the malaria strain probably jumped species in ‘a single host transfer.’
   The leap could have happened as early as two to three million years ago, or as recently as 10,000 years ago, in a process similar to the way the AIDS and SARS viruses jumped from animals to humans, the study said.
   ‘Today, human encroachment into the last forest habitats has further extended, leading to a higher risk of transfer of new pathogens, including new malaria parasites,’ the authors warn.

Pakistani fighter jets bombed Taliban hideouts and killed at least five militants near the Swat valley in the northwest of the country on Monday, officials said.
   The aircraft raided the town of Dok Darra near Swat, where Taliban militants first rebelled two years ago, after intelligence reports said a large number of militants gathered in the area, military spokesman Major Nasir Ali Khan said.
   ‘The bombing destroyed three Taliban bases and killed five militants,’ he said.
   Local administration chief Javed Marwat confirmed the air strikes and said at least five militants were killed, but warned that the number of casualties could rise.

A Malaysian court on Monday charged 29 people, including a teenage boy, for taking part in a massive weekend protest against internal security laws that saw 589 people arrested.
   In the biggest demonstration in Malaysia for nearly two years, the police used tear gas and water cannon Saturday to disperse thousands of people calling for the abolition of laws that allow for detention without trial.
   Most of those detained were released over the past two days but the 29 still in custody were charged at a Kuala Lumpur court with taking part in an illegal rally or aiding an illegal organisation.
   Among them were five women, including Norlaila Othman whose husband has been held under the Internal Security Act for seven years, and a 16-year-old teenager.
   In Malaysia it is illegal to hold a demonstration without a permit from police, who rarely give them the green light.
   The 29 all pleaded not guilty and were released on bail. If convicted, they could be jailed for between one and three years, depending on which of the two charges they face.
   Defence lawyer Azizul Shariman Mat Yusoff denied the group that mounted the protest was an illegal organisation.
   ‘The Abolish ISA Movement is a coalition comprising 83 registered NGOs and political parties,’ he told the court.

Japan’s main opposition has maintained its strong lead over prime minister Taro Aso’s party ahead of parliamentary elections on August 30, according to a poll published Monday.
   Thirty-nine per cent of respondents said they intended to vote for the opposition Democratic Party of Japan against 22 per cent for the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party, the Asashi Shimbun daily said.
   In the election, 180 seats in the 480-member lower house are selected by proportional representation, while 300 legislators are directly elected.
   The Asahi polled 1,037 eligible voters at the weekend.

A bomb hidden in a rubbish bin exploded near a police convoy in a western Afghan city Monday, killing 12 people as a wave of Taliban violence grips the nation ahead of elections.
   A woman and a girl were among those killed in the attack claimed by the Taliban militia — masterminds of an insurgency now at record levels and raising alarm among Afghanistan’s Western allies.
   The bombing, which also left 29 people injured, was the deadliest for months in the relatively peaceful city of Herat, heightening concerns that a Taliban-led insurgency could mar presidential and provincial elections on August 20.
   Taking over as NATO chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, vowed that the alliance would help to prevent Afghanistan once again becoming a hub of international terror and said there could be no question of rushing for the exit door.
   Provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai said the Herat blast was caused by a remotely-detonated bomb planted in a roadside rubbish bin.

Scuffles broke out on Sunday when hundreds of Saudi women students held a rare protest at a university over alleged corrupt admission policies, local newspapers reported.
   The protest erupted after students were turned away on admissions day at Taif University, south of the holy city of Mecca, Okaz and its sister paper the Saudi Gazette said on Monday.
   Female security guards clashed with the students and female guardians as they staged a sit-in and blocked streets and the entrance to the university, they said on their web sites.
   Witnesses quoted by the Saudi Gazette said that Red Crescent relief teams treated the female guardian of one of the girls ‘who was beaten up by the security women.’
   Al-Medina newspaper said the women and their guardians attempted to storm the university’s gate and were pushed back by security guards, resulting in some injuries.
   The women accused the university of admitting less qualified students and closing admissions before the official registration date.
   But the dean of admissions and registration, Hisham al-Zeer denied there was any corruption in the admissions process, the Gazette said.
   Photographs of the protest showed hundreds of women covered in black abayas, or head-to toe robes, standing and sitting by a university entrance and in the street.