Presidential elections will be held in Iran on June 12, 2009. It will be the 10th presidential election to be held in the country. The current incumbent is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is running for re-election. The Iranian reform movement has attempted to unite behind a single candidate. Former President Mohammad Khatami had been the leading opponent to Ahmadinejad until he left the race and endorsed former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Former Speaker of the Majlis Mehdi Karroubi, another Reformist, is also running, as is former Commander of Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Rezaei, a Conservative. For GRN's Forward Planning link, click here.

“This work is not yet finished,” said Mr. Obama. “To this day there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened," said the US president. Mr. Obama visited the notorious Nazi death camp accompanied by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and was guided by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, Times Online reports. AP say Mr. Obama added "This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history." He challenged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has expressed doubts that 6 million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, to visit, too.

The BBC says two detained aides to radical cleric Sufi Mohammad have been killed during a militant ambush in Pakistan's Swat valley, the country's military says. The pair, arrested on Friday, died when rebels attacked a convoy transporting prisoners to Peshawar, officials said. The men - Muhammad Alam and Ameer Izzat Khan - were senior aides to Sufi Mohammed, the father-in-law of the Taliban leader in the Swat valley. The army said one soldier was also killed in the attack. Military officials said suspected Taliban rebels ambushed the prisoner convoy en route to Peshawar early on Saturday. There was a gun battle between rebels and security forces, with at least one report suggesting the convoy was hit by a roadside bomb. Muhammad Alam and Ameer Izzat Khan were among six men arrested on Friday along with another aide to Sufi Mohammad and three Afghan nationals. They were held as the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, visited Pakistan to visit people displaced by recent fighting in the Swat region between Pakistan's army and Taliban militants. Meanwhile, AFP report investigators are sifting through a mosque in northwest Pakistan after a suicide bomber killed 38 people, heightening fears of a rebel backlash to an offensive to eliminate the Taliban. The attack happened during prayers in a remote, mountainous village in Upper Dir, which borders the district of Swat, where the military has focused a concerted air and ground assault against the Taliban. Friday's bombing comes after a series of similar blasts on civilian targets in retaliation for the offensive in Swat, which was launched in late April and would appear to have the rebels on the run. "The tide in Swat has decisively turned: major population centres and roads leading to the valley have been largely cleared of organised resistance by the terrorists," army chief General Ashfaq Kayani was quoted saying in a statement. Claims from either side and reports of death tolls are difficult to verify.

Reuters report a fire at a daycare center in northern Mexico on Friday killed at least 29 children and injured others, the government said. The victims died of mostly from smoke inhalation, Sonora state Justice Department spokesman Jose Larrinaga said on Milenio television. "They are various ages, from 3 or 4 months up to 2 or 3 years old," he said, adding several more children had been rushed to hospital where they were being treated for smoke inhalation. He said it was unclear where or how the fire started at the daycare center in the city of Hermosillo, although Mexican media reported it may have broken out in a nearby warehouse or a tire shop. Meanwhile Sky News say the victims, some as young as three months old, died mostly from smoke inhalation, a spokesman for the Sonora state justice department said. Jose Larrinaga added: "They are various ages, from three or four months up to two or three years old." He said it was unclear where or how the fire started at the ABC nursery in the city of Hermosillo. Mexican media reported it may have broken out in a nearby warehouse or a tyre shop. Five members of staff and 26 other children have been taken to hospital for treatment following the blaze, Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours said. The BBC presents a photo gallery of the catastrophe in the Mexican nursery.

GRN's Addrienne Bard reports that lack of emergency exits at the day care centre made escape from the blaze impossible. The BBC says dozens of children were taken to hospital suffering from burns and smoke inhalation. Officials warn that the final death toll may rise. The fire appears to have started in a tyre depot with flammable materials next to the day-care centre. "We're still investigating what caused the fire," said Jose Larrinaga, a spokesman for the Sonora prosecutor's office. Meanwhile AFP tels of desperate scenes, in which local residents smashed the cement walls of the center in the state capital Hermosillo with cars and vans to try to save the children, said Larrinaga on Televisa television channel.

The BBC says two bodies and debris have been found from the Air France plane which went missing over the Atlantic last Monday, the Brazilian air force has said. The remains were taken from the water early on Saturday morning, said spokesman Jorge Amaral. Experts on human remains are on their way to examine the find. All 228 passengers and crew on board AF 447 are believed to have been killed when the plane disappeared during its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Meanwhile, The Press Association reports the discovery comes on the day French investigators said the communications system on flight AF 447, which was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris last Sunday, transmitted 24 error messages ahead of the flight's disappearance and its autopilot was not working. Colonel Jorge Amaral, a spokesman for the Brazilian air force, said two male bodies were recovered from an area where the jet is believed to have crashed. They were picked up roughly 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast, he said. He added that a suitcase containing a plane ticket for the flight was also found. Structural engineer Arthur Coakley, 61, from near Whitby, North Yorkshire, and oil worker Graham Gardner, 52, from Gourock, Renfrewshire, were among the five Britons on flight AF447. Orthodontist Dr Jose Souza and Alexander Bjoroy, an 11-year-old boy who held a British passport, were also on the flight. Three Irish women - all doctors who had graduated from Trinity College Dublin - were also on the plane with a Welsh female friend. Former Riverdance performer Eithne Walls, 28, from Ballygowan, Co Down, was travelling with her friends Aisling Butler, 26, of Roscrea, Co Tipperary, and Jane Deasy of Dublin, who was also in her 20s. Earlier, at a briefing in Paris, the investigators said the Airbus A330's communication system transmitted 24 error messages ahead of the flight's disappearance.

The BBC reports Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro says US allegations that a Washington couple spied for Cuba are a "ridiculous tale". In an editorial, he questioned the timing of their arrest - days after the Organisation of American States lifted Cuba's 1962 expulsion from the group. The couple, retired state department official Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, are accused of having passed on information to Cuba for three decades. The pair, both in their 70s, face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. In his article, Mr Castro described the case as an "espionage comic strip". He admitted that he had meet the Myers in Mexico in 1995 - as the US alleges - but went on to say that he had met thousands of US citizens in his life for all sorts of reasons. Meanwhile, Reuters say Castro neither confirmed nor denied the veracity of the spy charges brought by U.S. authorities against Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and Gwendolyn Myers, 71, or the U.S. Justice Department's assertion that Kendall Myers used his top-secret security clearance to give classified information to Havana. But in a dismissive column posted on a website on which he writes about Cuba and world affairs, Castro said he could not recall meeting the couple at some point in 1995, as alleged by the U.S. Justice Department. "At the time I met with thousands of North Americans for different reasons, both individually and in groups ... so I can hardly be asked to remember details of a meeting with just two people," he wrote. The 82-year-old Castro retired as Cuba's president in February 2008 due to health problems, handing the post to his younger brother Raul. Earlier, the Washington Post reported that an indictment unsealed Friday said Walter Kendall Myers worked his way into higher and higher U.S. security clearances while secretly partnering with his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, as clandestine agents so valued by the Cuban government that they once had a private four-hour meeting with President Fidel Castro. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that the arrest culminated a three-year investigation of Myers and that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ordered a "comprehensive damage assessment" to determine what he may have passed to the Cubans. The Myerses' arrest could affect congressional support for easing tensions with Cuba dating back to the Cold War. Two months ago, the Obama administration took steps to relax a trade embargo imposed on the island nation in 1962. David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security, described the couple's alleged spying for the communist government as "incredibly serious." Court documents indicate the couple received little money for their efforts, but instead professed a deep love for Cuba, Castro and the country's system of government. The documents describe the couple's spying methods changing with the times, beginning with old-fashioned tools of Cold War spying: Morse code messages over a short-wave radio and notes taken on water-soluble paper. By the time they retired from the work in 2007, they were reportedly sending encrypted e-mails from Internet cafes. The criminal complaint says changing technology also persuaded Gwendolyn Myers to abandon what she considered an easy way of passing information, by changing shopping carts in a grocery store. The document quoted her as saying she would no longer use that tactic. "Now they have cameras, but they didn't then." Authorities say her comments came during a series of meetings this spring with an undercover FBI agent. A law enforcement official said the agent approached Kendall Myers on the street on his birthday, April 15, claiming to be as associate of his Cuban handler. The agent gave him a birthday cigar and proposed they meet later that evening at a Washington hotel. Myers fell for the ruse and said he'd bring his wife along. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation. The Myerses had been out of touch with their Cuban handlers for some time, according to court documents. The couple said they lived "in fear and anxiety for a long time." Kendall Myers feared his boss had put him on a watch list in 1995. They told the FBI agent that they were not interested in regular spying again but would help where they could. Authorities said that led to three meetings with the agent, during which they shared their views of Obama administration officials who had recently taken over responsibility for Latin American policy. They also accepted a device to encrypt future e-mail. The undercover agent proposed a fourth meeting for Thursday at a Washington hotel, where the couple was arrested. The couple pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court. They were ordered held in jail until a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday. Their attorney, Thomas Green, declined to comment.

Reuters say Air France began changing airspeed sensors on Airbus long-haul aircraft due to icing fears five weeks before the crash of flight 447, but only after failing to agree a fix with Airbus, it said on Saturday. Investigators said earlier the stricken A330 had sent out an airspeed error message before crashing into the Atlantic last Monday and that similar problems had been noticed before. In a statement, the airline said it begun noticing airspeed problems from icing on both A330 and A340 planes in May 2008 and had requested a solution from Airbus, the manufacturer. According to Air France, Airbus proposed testing different sensors despite earlier doubting they would resolve the problem, but that the airline declined to wait and started changing them from April 27.

The Press Association reports Lebanese have begun voting in crucial elections that could unseat a pro-Western government and install one dominated by the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. A win for the Shiite militant group and its allies in the race for a majority in the 128-member parliament could bring isolation to Lebanon and possibly a new conflict with Israel. It also would set back US Middle East policy and boost Hezbollah backers Syria and Iran. Polls opened at 7 am (0400 GMT) on Sunday and close 12 hours later. Voters lined up outside polling stations. Vehicles filled highways carrying voters to hometowns on the Mediterranean coast and high up in the mountains. Early unofficial returns were expected late on Sunday and results on Monday. AP looks at the main players in the Lebanese elections.

AP report a military official says 15 gunmen and a soldier were killed in a two-hour shootout in the heart of Acapulco's hotel zone. The army colonel who led the battle against the gunmen says the shootout erupted when the military received a tip about the presence of armed men at a house in the hotel zone. He says the gunmen opened fire with assault rifles and about 50 grenades on soldiers who arrived at the house. The soldiers found four Guerrero state police officers inside the house who said they were being held captive by the gunmen. The colonel led reporters through the scene early Sunday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of security reasons. The gunbattle started Saturday night and went on past midnight.

AP report Lebanon's pro-Western coalition declared victory early Monday, as local television stations reported the faction had successfully fended off a serious challenge by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its allies to grab the majority in parliament. Official results for Sunday's election were not expected until later Monday, but the winners were already celebrating by shooting in the air, setting off fireworks and driving around in honking motorcades. The election was an early test of President Barack Obama's efforts to forge Middle East peace. A win by Hezbollah would have boosted the influence of its backers Iran and Syria and risked pushing one of the region's most volatile nations into international isolation and possibly into more conflict with Israel. "I present this victory to Lebanon," Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said on television after stations projected his pro-Western coalition was winning. "It is an exceptional day for democracy in Lebanon." OTV, the television station of one of Hezbollah's key Christian allies, former army chief Michel Aoun, conceded that the party's candidates who challenged pro-Western competitors in several Christian districts had been defeated, preventing a victory for the Hezbollah coalition. But Aoun was able to hang on to his representation in other districts. Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, a leading private Christian TV station, projected the pro-Western coalition to win 68 seats in the next parliament, with 57 for Hezbollah and its allies and three for independents. That would almost replicate the deadlock that existed in the outgoing parliament, in which the pro-Western bloc had 70 seats and an alliance of Hezbollah and other Shiite and Christian factions had 58. Robert Fist writes in the Independent: "There will be no Islamic Republic of Lebanon. Nor will there be a pro-Western Lebanese republic. There will, after yesterday's vote – for the Hizbollah-Christian coalition and for the secular Sunni-Christian alliance – be a government of "national salvation" in Beirut, run by an ex-army general-president with ever-increasing powers. Washington would have preferred that Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated ex-prime minister, came out with a clear win. But out of the shadows will come the same crippled, un-healable Lebanon; delightful, unworkable, poor old Lebanon, corrupt, beautiful, vanity-prone, intelligent, democratic – yes, definitely, democratic – and absolutely outside our powers to reform."

At least seven people have been killed and dozens wounded in Baghdad after a bomb planted on a minibus exploded, security officials told AFP. The attack occurred on Monday in the mixed southern district of Dora, which has been hit by a number of attacks in recent weeks, a security source said. "Seven people were killed and 24 wounded after an IED (improvised explosive device) was attached to the bus," said another official from the interior ministry. The bombing comes three weeks ahead of the planned June 30 withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi cities and major towns. While bombings remain a regular occurrence in Iraq, the level of violence has dropped markedly in recent months.

A record low turnout in the European elections helped far-Right and extremist parties benefit from the economic crisis at the expense of the centre-Left. Traditional Social Democrats and Socialists did badly across the European Union as centre-right governments in Germany, France, Italy and Poland weathered the storm to consolidate votes. The 43 per cent turnout rate was the lowest on record since European elections began in 1979, a development that has raised concern over political credibility at a time when EU powers are poised to increase with the Lisbon Treaty. Margot Wallstrom, the European Commission Vice-President, said: "It does affect the legitimacy of the EU." For Bruno Waterfield's Daily Telegraph full article, click here.

Irish Times: The verdicts in the civil action taken by some relatives of the Omagh bombing victims will be delivered in Belfast this morning. Mr Justice Morgan will deliver his findings in the High Court. He has been considering the actions taken by the relatives against five men whom they believe were responsible for the 1997 Real IRA bombing which killed 29 people including a mother pregnant with twins. The action has been supported by a series of political figures including Bill Clinton, as well as Bob Geldof and Barry McGuigan. Michael Gallagher, whose 21-year-old son Aiden died in the blast, said the decision to sue the five men had empowered the families, especially in the wake of the failure on both sides of the Border to convict anyone of murder.

The AFP reports an Israeli court on Monday found former finance minister Avraham Hirshson guilty of embezzling a million dollars from a labour union. Tel Aviv district court convicted Hirshson of stealing four million shekels from the National Workers Federation between 1998 and 2005, when he headed the right-wing trade union body. "The defendant and his associates emptied the coffers of the organisation they headed," the judge wrote in her ruling, which found Hirshson guilty of four different charges of theft, embezzlement and breach of trust. The indictment said that Hirshson had for years received cash-stuffed envelopes delivered to his home by his associates. Hirshson, who was expected to appeal against his conviction, could face up to seven years in prison. He quit as finance minister in July 2007 after the scandal broke.

A poll conducted by an anti-Corruption organization has recently revealed that the majority of Israeli's believe their government is not seriously fighting against Corruption... Click here for the PressTV article.

Before Iran's Islamic Revolution, he was a member of an underground organization fighting against Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's regime. Afterward, Rezai helped found and lead the Revolutionary Guard, and he was a warrior in the 1980s war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army. In recent years, he launched two of Iran's most acclaimed news websites, which spoke out against the country's feuding conservative and reformist factions. Now, he's the only conservative among three candidates running against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is seeking reelection to the presidency of the Islamic Republic. Although Rezai was long a man of war, he's convinced he is the person to calm relations between Iran and the international community. For Borzou Daragahi's LA Times full article, click here.

Relatives of the Omagh bombing victims have won a landmark judgment in a multi-million pound civil case against four men they blamed for the atrocity. Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt and three other men - Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly - were found to be responsible for the terrorist attack by a judge in a landmark civil case brought by victims' families at Belfast High Court. The Real IRA was also found liable for the attack which killed 29 people in Monday's ruling. After more than a decade it was a major breakthrough for those who demanded justice... Click here for the Telegraph full article.

The BBC: President Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has said that the US wants immediate talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Mr Mitchell is on his way to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan. He was speaking at al donors' conference in Oslo aimed at providing support for the Palestinian Authority. He said it was important to build up Palestinian institutions so that an independent and viable Palestinian state could soon be in place. Mr Mitchell has said that President Obama has made clear to his administration that a two-state solution is the only viable one. The president repeated his call for a two-state solution and a halt to Jewish settlement activity during a visit to Germany and Egypt last week. Norway's Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said recent political uncertainty over the future of a Middle East peace deal had had a negative impact on fund-raising efforts for the Palestinians. A World Bank report on the Palestinian economy that was released at the donor meeting said foreign support remained "indispensable" for the provision of basic services in the Palestinian territories.Global Voices blogger  Amira Al Hussaini is available to comment on the story. For more details on Amira's blog, click  here.

Jane Kennedy has quit the Government after Gordon Brown led Labour to its worst ever election results, deepening the Prime Minister's leadership crisis. The farming minister is the eighth minister to quit in less than a week. She quit hours before Mr Brown's make-or-break meeting with Labour MPs on Monday night. She left the Government after deciding she could no longer support Mr Brown as Labour leader. Mrs Kennedy said that Mr Brown's style of politics had alienated many voters. "The public have turned away from us and are not prepared to listen to us. "The electorate are rejecting us. This is the point at which we need to turn the corner. We need to listen to the message that the British people are giving us. We need to give the Labour Party a fighting chance." She said she and Mr Brown discussed her position in a "frank and honest" conversation. "I had to say what is in my heart about where the Labour Party is and where it is going," she said. She made clear could have stayed in Government but had chosen to resign. "It was my decision," she said. Click here for the full Telegraph article.

The Telegraph reports investigators have found eight more bodies in the Atlantic Ocean, bringing the total recovered from Air France flight 447 to 29. Search crews also recovered the vertical stabiliser from the tail section of the airliner, according to Air Force Col. Henry Munhoz, a spokesman for the Brazilian air force. The discoveries of debris and the bodies are all helping searchers narrow their hunt for the jet's black boxes, perhaps investigators' best hope of learning what happened to the flight.

The American military has released a senior Shiite insurgent said to be backed by Iran who was accused of playing a leading role in a group that killed five American soldiers in Karbala in a sophisticated attack in 2007, according to senior American and Shiite officials. The release of the insurgent, Laith al-Khazali, a member of the militant Shiite group Asa’ib al-Haq, is part of a complex negotiation aimed at fostering political reconciliation in Iraq. It also appears to involve the release of British hostages who are being held by the organization. “As part of a reconciliation effort between the government of Iraq and Asa’ib al-Haq, the decision has been made to release Layth Khazali,” said Lt. Col. Brian Maka, a spokesman for the American military commander here, in an e-mailed response to questions from The New York Times.

North Korea's sentencing of two American TV journalists to 12 years of hard labor Monday could imperil the Obama administration's already difficult goal of curtailing the authoritarian nation's nuclear weapons ambitions. If no deal is reached, the two women face a grim future in a brutal prison system notorious for its lack of adequate food and medical supplies and its high death rate. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were convicted by the nation's top Central Court of an unspecified "grave crime" against the hard-line regime after they were arrested in March along the Chinese-North Korean border while reporting a story on human trafficking. For John Glionna's LA Times full article, click here.

Daily Telegraph: The oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to pay $15.5 million (£9.7 million) to settle several lawsuits alleging it collaborated in the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and other protesters in Nigeria. The case, in which the company was accused of backing a campaign of repression conducted by Nigeria's former military government in the oil-rich Niger Delta region in the 1990s was due to go to trial in a New York court. Mr Saro-Wiwa led a non-violent protest against environmental destruction and abuses against the region's Ogoni tribe. He and eight tribal leaders were subsequently hanged by the government.  Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr, his son, and other relatives of the victims were able to sue in a US court under the little used Allen Tort Claims Act, a 1789 law that allows foreigners to pursue alleged humans rights abuses occurring overseas.

Reuters: An al Qaeda suspect accused in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa was transferred from Guantanamo Bay to appear in a New York court on Tuesday, the Justice Department said. Ahmed Ghailani will become the first Guantanamo detainee to go on trial in a civilian U.S. court. He was to make an appearance in federal court in Manhattan later in the day, the department said in a statement. Ghailani, a Tanzanian who had been held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba since September 2006, arrived in New York early Tuesday under escort from the U.S. Marshals Service. The Justice Department said he faced 286 counts, including conspiring with Osama bin Laden and other members of al Qaeda to kill Americans anywhere in the world, and separate charges of murder for the deaths of each of the 224 people killed in the August 7, 1998, U.S. Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.

MANILA, the PHILIPPINES – (June 11, 2009/1454 hrs +8 hrs GMT) – The full computerization of the 2010 national elections in the Philippines will finally commence with the awarding of the US$ 245 million automation process awarded to Smartmatic and Total Information Management (TIM), a Dutch-Filipino consortium. In a two-page resolution, the commissioners of the Commission on Elections announced the winning bidder after almost two-months of controversy laden bidding process, and after almost a decade of efforts to automate the Philippine election process. Close to 82,500 computerized ballot reading machines will be used in the next elections on May of 2010. Elections in the Philippines has been dubbed as extremely slow and highly contentious, usually marred with fraud or cheating.