Wearing black, Mousavi supporters hold mourning rally

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By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Mirhossein Mousavi's backers, wearing black and carrying candles, rallied in Tehran on Thursday to mourn those killed in mass protests against an election the defeated candidate says was rigged.
(Editors' note: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
Days of public fury over the disputed election led Iran's top legislative body, the Guardian Council, to invite Mousavi and the two other candidates beaten by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to discuss their complaints on Saturday.
The election has provoked Iran's worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Bloodshed, protests, arrests and a media crackdown have rocked the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, embroiled in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
Witnesses said people packed Imam Khomeini Square in central Tehran on Thursday, a day after Mousavi called on his supporters to gather in mosques or at peaceful rallies.
He told them to wear the color of mourning -- black as opposed to the green of his election campaign -- in solidarity with families of those wounded or killed in the protests.
"Where are our brothers?" read one banner in the crowd. "Why did you kill our brothers?" read another.
Iran's English-language state television has reported eight people killed in protests since election results were published. Scores of reformists have been arrested across the country.
Security agents detained opposition politician Ebrahim Yazdi while he was in hospital, an ally of his said on Thursday. Yazdi heads the banned Freedom Movement and was foreign minister in Iran's first government after the revolution.
A spokesman for the Guardian Council said it had begun "careful examination" of 646 complaints submitted after the June 12 vote. Complaints include shortage of ballot papers, pressure on voters to support a particular candidate, and the barring of candidates' representatives from polling stations.
Ahmadinejad was declared winner with nearly 63 percent of the vote against 34 percent for his closest rival, Mousavi, a moderate politician who wants better ties with the West.
Mousavi wants the vote annulled and held again. The council has said it is ready only to recount disputed ballot boxes.
Council spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai said Mousavi and fellow-candidates Mehdi Karoubi and Mohsen Rezaie could raise their problems at an extraordinary council meeting on Saturday.
"CHALLENGE TO WESTERN DEMOCRACY"
Ahmadinejad defended the legitimacy of the vote, telling a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that it had "posed a great challenge to the West's democracy," Mehr news agency reported. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Iranian authority offers talks with election losers

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By Fredrik Dahl and Dominic Evans
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's top legislative body, seeking to calm days of public fury over a disputed presidential election, has invited the three losers to discuss their complaints on Saturday, its spokesman said on Thursday.
(EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
The election has provoked Iran's worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Bloodshed, protests, arrests and a media crackdown have rocked the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, embroiled in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
A spokesman for the 12-member Guardian Council said it had begun "careful examination" of 646 complaints submitted after the June 12 vote. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner with nearly 63 percent of the vote against 34 percent for his closest rival, Mirhossein Mousavi.
Mousavi wants the vote annulled and held again. The council has said it is ready only to recount disputed ballot boxes.
Council spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai said Mousavi and fellow-candidates Mehdi Karoubi and Mohsen Rezaie could raise their problems at an extraordinary council meeting on Saturday.
Mousavi's supporters prepared to heed his call for a day of mourning on Thursday for those killed in mass demonstrations against what the former prime minister says was a rigged poll.
Iran's English-language state television has reported eight people killed in five days of protests in Tehran and elsewhere.
Security agents have detained opposition politician Ebrahim Yazdi while he was in hospital, an ally of his said on Thursday.
Yazdi, who heads the banned Freedom Movement and was foreign minister in Iran's first government after the revolution, was among scores of reformists rounded up since the election.
On his website, Mousavi called on Iranians to demonstrate peacefully or gather in mosques wearing the color of mourning -- black as opposed to the green of his election campaign.
He urged them to show solidarity with the families of those wounded or martyred "as a consequence of illegal and violent encounters" with people protesting against the election result.
"CHALLENGE TO WESTERN DEMOCRACY"
Ahmadinejad defended the legitimacy of the vote, telling a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that it had "posed a great challenge to the West's democracy," Mehr news agency reported.
"The ideals of the Islamic Revolution were the winners of the election," Ahmadinejad said, adding that 25 million of 42 million voters had approved the way he was running the country. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Suicide bomber kills Somali security minister

By Abdi Guled and Ibrahim Mohamed
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Hardline Islamist insurgents killed Somalia's security minister and at least 24 other people on Thursday in the deadliest suicide bomb attack yet in the Horn of Africa nation, officials said.
Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden was a key player in the government offensive against Islamist rebels who control much of southern Somalia and want to topple the government and impose a strict version of Islamic law in the Horn of Africa nation.
A suicide car bomber targeted Aden and other officials at a hotel in Baladwayne, a central town where the minister was helping direct operations against the insurgent group al Shabaab, which Washington says has links to al Qaeda.
Mohamed Abdi, a shopkeeper near the hotel, said smoke was rising from the building, government forces started shooting after the blast and body parts were scattered in the street.
Officials and hospital sources said the bomb killed at least 25 people and wounded 38.
"I am sending condolences to the family of the Security Minister Omar Hashi who was killed in an explosion in Baladwayne," President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed told reporters, calling al Shabaab nothing more than a "mafia."
Aden moved to Baladwayne at the start of June with heavily armed troops in a bid to recapture more territory from hardline Islamist insurgents outside Mogadishu.
Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.
"One of our Mujahideen has carried out that holy attack and the so-called security minister and his men were killed," Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, told local media.
A senior official in the prime minister's office said Somalia's former ambassador to Ethiopia, Abdkarin Farah Laqanyo, was also killed in the explosion.
A senior al Shabaab official said after a deadly suicide car bomb attack on a police headquarters in the capital on May 25 that there would be more suicide strikes in the coming days.
(Additional reporting by Abdiaziz Hassan in Nairobi, Writing by David Clarke; Editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura and Charles Dick)
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: af.reuters.com/)

Source: Reuters

ElBaradei, Israel clash over Syria probe "bias"

By Mark Heinrich
VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Thursday angrily rejected Israeli accusations of bias in a probe by his agency into allegations of a secret Syrian atomic site, calling Israel's position "totally distorted." The International Atomic Energy Agency has been examining U.S. intelligence reports saying Syria almost completed a reactor that could have yielded plutonium for atom bombs, before Israel bombed it to pieces in 2007.
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei has chided Syria for withholding documentation and access for inspectors seeking to clarify the allegations. But he has also rebuked Israel for not alerting the U.N. watchdog before destroying the site, complicating the search to establish the truth.
Tensions boiled at a meeting of the IAEA's governing body when Israel's envoy accused ElBaradei of making "redundant" demands and showing bias by making repeated calls on Israel to provide more evidence.
Israel's delegate said it had answered the only relevant IAEA question posed to it, by stating that uranium traces found later at the alleged reactor site did not come from Israeli munitions used to bomb it -- a position largely accepted by agency investigators.
"Therefore the repeated call by the director general on Israel to cooperate with this investigation is redundant," Ambassador Israel Michaeli told the 35-nation governing board during a debate on the Syria issue.
"Had the director-general wished for further information from Israel, he would have not refused to meet with Israeli officials, and (would have) refrained from publicly lashing at Israel.
"Israel calls on (ElBaradei) to avoid political bias in dealing with the Syrian file," Michaeli concluded.
"DISTORTED"
ElBaradei, in a caustic rebuttal unusual in the diplomatic body, called Michaeli's statement "totally distorted."
He recalled international criticism of Israel's 1981 air attack on Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor "as a clear violation of international law," and said its September 2007 raid on the Syrian site fell into the same category.
Looking straight at Michaeli, ElBaradei told him that Israel's air strike had prevented the IAEA from carrying out its duty to verify reports of illicit nuclear weapons activity.
"You, sir, did not allow us to do what we are supposed to do under international law," he said. "You are not even part of the (non-proliferation) regime to tell us what to do. We would appreciate that you stop preaching to us," ElBaradei went on.
Israel is one of only three countries outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty and is believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal, the only one in the Middle East.
Syria, for decades in a technical state of war with Israel, denies having tried to build a weapons-oriented nuclear reactor with North Korean help. It says Israel's target was an ordinary military building and the U.S. intelligence was forged.
ElBaradei said the full extent of Israel's response to IAEA requests to account for the uranium traces found at the Syrian site was: "It could not have come from us." He said that response was "almost an insult to the agency." Continued...
Source: Reuters

Bomb plot suspects in Germany confess: lawyers

By Matthias Inverardi
DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - Four Islamic militants standing trial for planning big bomb attacks on U.S. targets in Germany have confessed to the charges, defense lawyers said on Thursday.
The planned attacks were designed to be as destructive as the September 11, 2001 strikes in the United States, prosecutors said, adding that the defendants had identified bars, discos and the U.S. Ramstein air base as possible targets.
Johannes Pausch, the lawyer representing defendant Daniel Schneider, said all four militants were making confessions.
"My client is currently doing so; yesterday, today and tomorrow at the Federal Crime Office," he told Reuters."The others are also in the process of doing so. The whole thing should be concluded this week."
The charges against the four men include preparing bomb attacks and being members of a terrorist organization. If convicted, they face up to 15 years in jail. Lawyer Pausch said his client was hoping to get a reduced sentence by confessing.
Two defendants, Schneider and Fritz Gelowicz, are German converts to Islam, while Atilla Selek is a German citizen of Turkish origin, and Adem Yilmaz is a Turkish citizen.
Schneider would plead guilty in court to planning the attacks, Pausch said.
WELL-ADVANCED
Police have said the militants were well-advanced in their preparations for the attacks that could have killed more than 50 people, making it the worst attack of its kind in post-war German history.
Ricarda Lang, the lawyer representing defendant Yilmaz, said her client had decided to confess because of the psychological strain of the court proceedings.
"He is intellectually overtaxed and his main priority is to end the trial as soon as possible," she said.
Gelowicz's lawyer also said his client was confessing. Selek's lawyer could not be reached for comment.
German investigators began monitoring the group in early 2007 and arrested it on September 4 that year.
Investigators believe the defendants were aiming to time their planned car bomb attacks to coincide with a vote in parliament on whether Germany should extend its military presence in Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan mission in controversial amongst German voters and authorities believe the suspects wanted to influence public opinion against the mission.
(Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh and Dave Graham)

Source: Reuters

Insurgent ambush kills 24 Algerian police: report

By Christian Lowe and Lamine Chikhi
ALGIERS (Reuters) - Insurgents killed 24 Algerian paramilitary police in an ambush on their convoy late on Wednesday, a local newspaper reported on Thursday.
There was no official comment on the report but if confirmed it would be the deadliest single attack in months in Algeria, where the government is fighting an Islamist insurgency allied to the al Qaeda network.
It took place at about 8 p.m. on a stretch of highway between the settlements of El Meher and El Mansourah, about 180 km (110 miles) east of the capital, the Echorouk newspaper cited security sources and local people as saying.
It said the attackers first activated two improvised explosive devices and then opened fire on the convoy. The insurgents left, taking with them arms, weapons and six police off-road vehicles, said the newspaper.
Two Algerian security sources, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters that there had been an ambush and that more than 20 paramilitary police had been killed.
Algeria, a major oil and gas producer across the Mediterranean from Europe, has been struggling for nearly two decades to get to grips with Islamist insurgents who now operate under the banner of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
The number of attacks has been in overall decline but there has been an upsurge in violence over the past few weeks.
Insurgents killed five paramilitary gendarmes late in May and a week later shot dead nine soldiers. At the start of this month AQIM killed a British man, Edwin Dyer. The group had been holding him hostage in neighboring Mali.
The newspaper report said Wednesday's ambush had been carried out on the N5 highway, a major route linking the capital, Algiers, to cities in the east of Algeria.
It said the paramilitary police who came under attack had been assigned to guard a group of Chinese construction workers building a new east-west road link across Algeria. It did not say if any of the workers had been hurt in the attack.
(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; writing by Christian Lowe)

Source: Reuters

Money won't stop south Thai violence, Muslims say

By Martin Petty
BAN TALUBOH, Thailand (Reuters) - In the rustic villages of Thailand's Muslim south, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's promise of large-scale development aid to tackle a brutal insurgency sounds all too familiar.
"Money can't change what's happening, no one can buy an end to the problems here," said Yousuf, referring to a shadowy five-year rebellion that has claimed nearly 3,500 lives in the southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.
"It's the policies of Thai governments that are to blame," he said in a village tea shop in Pattani. "They have to understand that our way of life is different to other Thais and money won't make a difference."
Other villagers gave similar views on Abhisit's three-year plan to win "hearts and minds" by pouring 54 billion baht ($1.58 billion) into the region bordering Malaysia.
They are ethnic Malay Muslims who speak Thai as a second language, and dismiss the plan to boost fisheries, rubber and palm oil industries as another example of Buddhist Bangkok's failure to understand a region more than 1,000 kms away.
"Corrupt officials will keep the money for themselves. This is a useless idea," Arware said. "It could end up in the hands of the militant groups. Investment won't stop the violence."
Bearmah, a burly Muslim with teeth stained by sickly-sweet tea, said a better idea would be to withdraw the 30,000 soldiers deployed in the region and scrap an emergency decree that grants them broad powers of arrest with immunity from prosecution.
"The rebels are fighting the military. We don't need them here because we can protect ourselves," he said, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.
"The emergency laws let them arrest innocent people, jail them for a month, and sometimes they torture them -- how can this win hearts and minds?," he said.
MOSQUE ATTACK
The three provinces were part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate annexed by Buddhist Thailand a century ago, and its people have long resisted Bangkok's attempts to assimilate them.
A separatist insurgency from the 1970s and 1980s resurfaced in 2004, and attempts by successive Thai governments to quell the unrest with military force, investment and even free cable television have all failed.
The violence has intensified in the last two weeks, with Buddhists and Muslims among the 31 people killed and more than 50 wounded in the all too familiar gun and bomb attacks, for which no credible group has claimed responsibility.
The unrest has heaped more pressure on Abhisit's coalition government as it struggles to revive an economy hit by a global downturn and protracted political strife since a 2006 coup removed ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
Nestled in the jungles of Pattani, villages like Ban Taluboh have been traditional strongholds of Abhisit's Democrat Party. But few here believe his government, or any other, is capable of ending the violence. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Air France crash sparks black box debate

By Helen Massy-Beresford
PARIS (Reuters) - While search teams scour the Atlantic ocean for the black boxes of Air France flight AF447 before their signals die out, aviation experts are considering satellite data streaming to collect vital flight data in future.
An airliner's black box -- which is made up of a flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder -- is designed to withstand a crash and emit a signal for about 30 days afterwards. If it is not found by then, the data is unlikely to be recovered.
Many military aircraft already use data streaming, sending flight information real-time via satellite to ground stations.
But the massive bandwidth and sophisticated infrastructure needed to manage and process data from tens of thousands of commercial flights per day could make it prohibitively expensive.
"There have been studies on this for years. There are arguments both for and against, and also there are costs," Paul-Louis Arslanian, France's chief air disaster investigator said, after reporting that the search was progressing, but hampered by difficult search conditions.
"Data streaming is currently technologically possible, but technologically impractical," Dan Elwell, Vice President Civil Aviation of the U.S.-based Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) industry group, told Reuters at the Paris Air Show.
"There are opportunities there to improve the data stream and how we get it on and off the aircraft," said Bob Smith, Vice President for Advanced Technology at Honeywell, which made the black box that was on the Air France aircraft.
Bruce Coffey, President of the Aviation Recorders division of L-3 Communications -- the world's largest supplier of crash-survivable recording units -- told Reuters the use of data streaming in conjunction with traditional recording units could provide a "belt and suspenders" approach.
However, only one of L-3's black boxes has ever been lost after a crash -- from the American Airlines flight that plowed into the World Trade Center on September 11 2001.
CRUCIAL INFORMATION
Richard Hayden, President of Canada's Aeromechanical Services Ltd, thinks he has an answer to the question of cost.
The company's automated flight information recording system compresses data, allowing it to send 10 times more from an aircraft in the same bandwidth than with a standard satellite communication, dramatically cutting the cost to the operator.
Hayden said the system can be programed to start transmitting data non-stop as soon as there's a problem on board, and that this could have sent crucial information about the June 1 Air France crash that killed all 228 people on board.
"Today we have a situation where there's a possibility, if not a probability, that the FDR won't be recovered. All we have left is a very small set of messages," Hayden said, referring to the automated maintenance messages the A330-200 sent in its final moments, charting problems in all onboard systems.
Data streaming may be able to supplement black boxes, but not replace them, L-3's Coffey said. "If you're not able to recover the black boxes, there are going to be a lot of questions that remain unanswered, that should be answered." Continued...
Source: Reuters

India state begins to reclaim "liberated" Maoist zone

By Sujoy Dhar
KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - India began deploying on Thursday hundreds of police to push back Maoist rebels who declared a "liberated zone" close to the eastern city of Kolkata, sparking unease among investors in the communist-ruled state.
The Maoists, who want to grab power through an armed struggle, have killed at least 10 government supporters this week from a tribal area about 170 km (100 miles) from Kolkata, capital of West Bengal, highlighting the rebel's growing presence.
The communists have been in power in West Bengal for more than three decades, but the Maoists, who operate from jungle bases, have expanded their support among villagers by tapping their resentment at the government's recent pro-industry push.
"The operation has started to reclaim the region from the Maoists who captured all police posts on Monday," Kuldeep Singh, inspector general of police, told Reuters.
The violence has unnerved industry in a state where the government is trying to promote business, infuriating farmers whose violent protests forced the scrapping of a Tata Motors' Nano car plant and a $3 billion chemicals hub complex.
Hundreds of tribal men and women were seen patrolling villages in Lalgarh area with bamboo sticks, axe and bows and arrows after declaring it a "liberated zone" this week.
India's JSW Steel Ltd, the country's third largest steel producer, is setting up a $7 billion, 10-million tonne steel plant near Lalgarh.
The conflict between industry and farmers reflects a wider battle in India, where efforts to modernize the densely populated country have often met with violent backlashes from villagers who make up more than half the country's 1.1 billion plus population.
"The situation is dangerous," said Kallol Dutta, chief of state-run heavy engineering firm Andrew Yule. "The immediate concern is security, but a political solution is needed."
HUMAN SHIELDS
A senior state official said the Maoists were trying to use women and children as human shields against any police action.
"This is inhuman and dangerous. The women are being dragged into this terror act. I'm warning them (the Maoists) through the media," state chief secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty said.
In perhaps their boldest action yet, the rebels backed by tribal villagers launched a violent attack against police and government supporters in Lalgarh this week and cut off the area by digging up roads and cutting down trees.
The rebels torched houses of communist leaders in the area and police posts. Police say they kidnapped and killed at least six Communist party workers in the region this week.
India is battling the Maoists in swathes of the eastern, central and southern countryside, an insurgency which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as one of the gravest threats to the country's security. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Myanmar rebels to abandon base, vow to fight on

MAE SOT, Thailand (Reuters) - Myanmar's biggest rebel group will soon abandon a stronghold on the Thai-Myanmar border after weeks of fierce fighting with government and rival Karen forces, a rebel commander said on Thursday.
The Karen National Union (KNU) will adopt guerrilla tactics rather than waste lives trying to defend the base in eastern Myanmar, KNU Commander Kyaw Ny told reporters by telephone.
"The withdrawal from our 7th Division base does not mean we are defeated. It is a tactical redeployment. We also do not want to kill our fellow Karens in this battle," he said.
Myanmar troops and their allies from the breakaway Karen Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) launched a new offensive against the KNU on June 3, driving some 3,000 Karen refugees into Thailand, the Thai army says.
The KNU has been fighting for independence in the hills of eastern Myanmar for the last 60 years. The conflict is one of the world's longest running insurgencies.
Rebel leaders say the latest offensive is part of the military regime's campaign to eliminate all opposition ahead of promised multi-party elections in 2010.
The trial of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who faces up to five years in jail if convicted of violating her house arrest, resumes next week.
Critics say the trial is aimed at keeping the Nobel laureate and National League for Democracy (NLD) leader in detention ahead of next year's polls.
The Karen, an ethnic minority of about 7 million people, have been fighting for independence since 1949, one of the world's longest-running guerrilla conflicts. They are one of a handful of rebel militias not to have signed a ceasefire with the junta.
In February last year, KNU leader Mahn Sha Lar Phan was shot dead at his home in a Thai border town in an assassination blamed on the regime and its Karen allies.
Myanmar has been under military rule of one form or another since 1962, during which time it has been riven by dozens of ethnic guerrilla wars, funded in part by revenues from opium sales from the notorious "Golden Triangle."
(Reporting by Somjit Rungjumratrussamee; Writing by Kittipong Soonprasert; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: Reuters

North Korea chemical weapons threaten region: report

By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has several thousand tonnes of chemical weapons it can mount on missiles that could be used on a rapid strike against the South, said a report released on Thursday by the International Crisis Group (ICG).
North Korea in recent weeks has raised tensions in North Asia, responsible for one-sixth of the global economy, with missile launches, threats to attack the South and a May 25 nuclear test that led to U.N. sanctions.
The report from the prestigious non-governmental organization said the consensus view is the North's army possess about 2,500-5,000 tonnes of chemical weapons that include mustard gas, sarin and other deadly nerve agents.
"If there is an escalation of conflict and if military hostilities break out, there is a risk that they could be used. In conventional terms, North Korea is weak and they feel they might have to resort to using those," said Daniel Pinkston, the ICG's representative on Seoul.
The North has been working on chemical weapons for decades and can deliver them through long-range artillery trained on the Seoul area -- home to about half of South Korea's 49 million people -- and via missiles that could hit all of the country.
"The stockpile does not appear to be increasing but is already sufficient to inflict massive civilian casualties on South Korea," the ICG report said.
The report said North Korea has also worked on a biological weapons program but Pinkston does not think Pyongyang has fully developed that weapons program.
In a separate report released simultaneously, the ICG said North Korea has deployed more than 600 Scud-type missiles that can hit all of South Korea and as many as 320 Rodong missiles that can strike Japan.
The ICG said earlier this year intelligence it acquired indicates the North has developed a nuclear warhead it could mount on an Rodong missile, and this latest report repeats the claim.
Many weapons experts believe the North is years away from being able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to mount on a warhead and requires several more nuclear tests to develop one.
The ICG said the North's nuclear threat is the region's most urgent security issue but if progress is made on rolling back Pyongyang's atomic ambitions, there could be a way to find a solution to the threats posed by chemical and biological weapons.
MISSILE TESTS
North Korea has warned ships to stay away from waters off its eastern city of Wonsan until the end of the month, according to a Japan Coast Guard spokesman, which could indicate a possible missile test.
The North fired a barrage of short-range missiles off its east coast just after its nuclear test in May.
Separately, North Korea may be looking to test fire a long-range missile over Japan in the next few weeks, Japan's Yomiuri newspaper cited a defense ministry analysis as saying. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Iran set for day of mourning after protest deaths

Iranians protest on streets at night
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By Parisa Hafezi and Hashem Kalantari
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Supporters of Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi prepared to heed his rallying call for a national day of mourning on Thursday for those killed in post-election clashes.
(Editors' note: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
State media said seven people were killed in an opposition protest in Tehran against what Mousavi says was a rigged election last week in favor of hardline incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
On his website, Mousavi called on Iranians to stage peaceful demonstrations or gather in mosques on Thursday.
"In the course of the past days and as a consequence of illegal and violent encounters with (people protesting) against the outcome of the presidential election, a number of our countrymen were wounded or martyred," he said.
"I ask the people to express their solidarity with the families ... by coming together in mosques or taking part in peaceful demonstrations."
Official results from Friday's vote showed Ahmadinejad had won a landslide, leading to daily clashes between Mousavi backers, anti-riot police and Islamic militiamen. Authorities have dismissed opposition allegations of vote rigging.
Despite calls by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for national unity, Mousavi supporters have continued to pour on to the streets.
Bloodshed, mass protests, arrests and a media crackdown have focused attention on the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter which is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
On Wednesday, tens of thousands demonstrated in central Tehran for a fifth day against Ahmadinejad's official victory, which has caused the worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"INTERVENTIONIST" PROTESTS
Reformist clerics have requested permission from the governor of Tehran to hold a rally in the city on Saturday, to be attended by Mousavi and reformist former President Mohammad Khatami, Mousavi's website said.
Iran's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests, to protest at "interventionist" U.S. statements on the country's election.
In Washington, the State Department strongly rejected the criticism and the White House said President Barack Obama would continue to defend the right of Iranians to protest peacefully against the outcome of the election.
Mousavi sent a letter to Iran's state national security council complaining of plainclothes agents using sticks, metal rods and sometimes firearms to "attack the lines of peaceful participants before the arrival of the security forces." Continued...
Source: Reuters

French crash investigation advancing: official

Air France tail fin taken to Brazil
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By Tim Hepher and Peter Murphy
PARIS/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - French investigators are getting closer to understanding the cause of an Air France crash that killed 228 people, but difficult search conditions in the Atlantic Ocean are hampering the process, France's chief air disaster investigator said on Wednesday.
The Airbus 330 crashed into the sea en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, killing all on aboard.
The French military is using a mini-submarine to search the sea for the "black box" data and voice recorders which may offer clues to the cause.
"We are getting a little closer to our goal but don't ask me what the percentage of hope is," Paul-Louis Arslanian, head of the French BEA agency in charge of investigating the crash, told a news conference without giving details of its progress.
He said the remote location and uneven surface of the ocean where the search was focused posed one of the biggest challenges in the air crash investigation. The uneven ocean floor means the wreckage could lie anywhere between a depth of 1 km (0.6 miles) and 4 km (2.5 miles).
The BEA has said data transmitted from the plane before it crashed indicated unreliable speed readings from the aircraft's sensors, but cautioned it was too early to say whether this contributed to the accident.
Locator beacons known as "pingers" on the flight recorders send an electronic impulse every second for at least 30 days. The signal can be heard up to 2 km (1.2 miles) away.
"The goal is to understand what happened and for that we need tools and these tools must be facts. The recorders are recorders of facts. If we had them we would have more facts at our disposal," Arslanian said.
ONE PATHOLOGIST NOT ADMITTED
Arslanian said he was unhappy that a pathologist from the BEA had not been allowed by the Brazilians to take part in autopsies on the 50 bodies recovered so far despite his experience examining air crash fatalities.
Brazilian sources and a French diplomat in Brazil said that four other French experts had been authorized to take part in the investigations as observers. The diplomat said the Brazilians wanted to keep a restriction on numbers admitted.
"There are several pathologists and some have been allowed into the Legal Medical Institute but it wasn't possible for everyone to come in. That is what happened," the diplomat, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Almost equal numbers of French and Brazilian passengers died in the crash of the Airbus A330, and both countries have been keen to show they are doing their utmost to recover bodies and understand the causes of the disaster.
Arslanian urged the public to show "a lot of patience" and to stick to known facts rather than engage in speculation.
(Writing by Francois Murphy, Estelle Shirbon and Peter Murphy; editing by Stuart Grudgings and Frances Kerry)

Source: Reuters

Cuba is "rolling museum" of vintage U.S. cars

By Tom Brown
HAVANA (Reuters) - Elvis Presley croons "All Shook Up" from the CD player as Florentino Marin wipes down his 1955 Buick Century sedan on a central Havana street.
"It's always been said that Buicks and Cadillacs were the Kings of the Road," Marin says proudly, admiring the paint job on his two-tone, chrome-plated taxi as it glistened under a few drops of steamy morning rain.
"We have a museum here, but it rolls," said Marin, referring to the vintage American cars from the 1940s and '50s that are everywhere in the Cuban capital.
The cars predate communist Cuba's 1959 revolution, having rolled off the assembly line decades before the U.S. auto industry's current crisis of steep losses in reputation and market share.
They hark back to a time when Detroit's Big Three automakers were the envy of the world and a symbol of American economic power.
The years before Fidel Castro swept down from the Sierra Maestra mountains and began his triumphal march across Cuba also came before Detroit embraced so-called "planned obsolescence," a term popularized in the 1950s and early '60s for products designed to break down easily or go out of style.
The crisis now threatening the auto lifeblood of Detroit is rooted, at least in part, in the backlash from consumers who learned that U.S. vehicle manufacturers had stimulated short-term demand by ensuring that their products would fail after a certain amount of use.
"I don't think they ever meant to build cars that would last as long as this," said Jose Antonio Garcia, who drives a 1953 four-door Chevrolet Bel Air.
"This is a tank," Garcia said. "It's not something disposable like the clunkers that came along later."
The classic American cars of the early post-war years were indeed durable, as can be seen in the tens of thousands of them still running in Cuba.
ENGINE SWAPS
Iron-clad chassis, scooped body and once lavishly appointed interior often seem to be the only original parts of the cars built during the heyday of General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler, now run by Fiat of Italy, that are seen lumbering down Cuba's roads today.
A peek under the hood and second-hand paint job on Marin's Buick, for instance, reveals that he swapped out the original V-8 engine for a more fuel efficient four-cylinder diesel powerplant from Toyota Motor Corp.
Engine replacements have been made on most of the aging Dodges, Fords and Chevys that serve as taxis alongside the Russian Ladas and new Korean cars in Havana, as high fuel prices force drivers to sacrifice power for savings at the pump.
Drivers say most of the engine changes are performed by themselves, with the help of some strong-armed friends or neighbors to cut out the cost of hiring a professional mechanic. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Zimbabwe seeks tourism bonanza from World Cup

By MacDonald Dzirutwe
VICTORIA FALLS (Reuters) - Zimbabwe, its economy in ruins, is dreaming of millions of tourist dollars and even training visits by international soccer stars when the World Cup comes to South Africa next year.
Scottish explorer David Livingstone is said to have written after first seeing the Victoria Falls in 1855: "On sights as beautiful as this, angels in their flight must have gazed."
The magnificent waterfalls were once one of Africa's biggest tourist attractions, but Zimbabwe's political violence and economic collapse have reduced visitors to a trickle both here and at the country's other attractions.
Tourist income has slumped from $360 million at its 1999 peak to $29 million last year.
An influx of soccer fans before or after the tournament would be a godsend for this once prosperous nation and visits by teams like Brazil, Germany or even England would offer a rare morale boost for millions of impoverished but soccer-mad fans.
The sight of David Beckham marveling at the Victoria Falls or bending a trademark free kick on a local pitch would be a huge coup for a nation battling to shake-off its bad-boy image.
Tourism officials believe Zimbabwe could reap as much as $100 million from the World Cup, a windfall for a government which is broke and continues to be shunned by foreign donors.
The country has made international headlines for all the wrong reasons in the past decade, from violent seizures of white-owned farms, to election violence and political repression to the world's highest rate of hyper-inflation.
"This would be the perfect opportunity to showcase the other side of Zimbabwe by cleaning up our pariah image and showing the world that we have much to offer especially to tourists," said economist John Robertson.
UNREALISTIC DREAM?
But while the dream is almost painfully enticing for long-suffering Zimbabweans, it may well be unrealistic.
Teams looking for high altitude training to acclimatize for the June 11-July 11 World Cup may feel more comfortable in countries like Angola, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia, who do not have the baggage of an economy in ruins and a new power-sharing government that still has not won wide recognition.
A decade of crisis has wrecked infrastructure, including soccer stadiums and roads.
The 55,000-seater National Sports Stadium in Harare has been under repair for the past two years with no indication it will be ready in time.
Only one other stadium is up to scratch while plans to construct new ones were abandoned last year. Continued...
Source: Reuters