Voice of America says Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister, has been away from Iran's political arena for two decades, but he now poses the greatest threat to the incumbent, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Campaign rallies for Mr. Mousavi have drawn thousands in recent days, and in a new poll, 54 percent of those surveyed said they would vote for him. Mir Hossein Mousavi has built his presidential campaign on criticism of the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He says Iran's government needs to treat the country's young people - the majority - with respect. He says the current government is not doing that. "What is our mindset toward our own youth, our universities, our different generations? Should we consider them trustworthy?," he asked. He also promises to end enforcement of the regime's strict Islamic moral codes by the religious police. "Once president, I will immediately end the activities of the 'Moral Police Patrol,'" said Mousavi. Meanwhile, the New York Times says that while the West views the Iranian elections campaign mainly through the lens of policies on social freedom, nuclear weapons and Israel, for Iranians the deteriorating economy in the country is he main consideration. Iran’s crippling inflation rate, unemployment, and the question of how its oil revenue is being spent are at the top of the agenda for most voters, analysts say. According to Reuters, the elections campaign mainly provides Tehran's youth with an opportunity to party. As night falls, rival supporters of Iran's presidential candidates take over the streets of Tehran in boisterous scenes which at times resemble more a giant party than an election campaign in a conservative Islamic state. In the run-up to Friday's hotly contested vote, mainly young people descend on the capital's most famous boulevard in the evenings and bring traffic to a standstill in a cacophony of chanting slogans, honking car horns and loud music. But while many of those thronging tree-lined Vali-ye Asr in relatively affluent northern Tehran make clear their desire for political change, it also offers them a chance to let off steam and mingle with the opposite sex in public. "For 80 percent ... they only come out to have fun," said Ashkan, a teenager trying to make himself heard in the noise. He gave only his first name. "It is an excuse for boys and girls to talk to each other without trouble," he said, referring to the Islamic Republic's ban on unrelated men and woman socializing.

The Daily Telegraph says a total of 41 bodies have so far been recovered from the zone 700 miles off Brazil's northeast coast, Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Cardoso, the head of Brazilian air traffic control, said. The Air France Airbus A330 was carrying 228 passengers and crew when it crashed into the sea on June 1. It was four hours into its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Sixteen of the bodies have been taken to the nearest point on land, Brazil's archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, and the other 25 were on their way there, Lt Col Cardoso said. After being inspected, photographed and catalogued on those islands, they were to be flown to the mainland coastal city of Recife for identification by forensic teams. Brazilian and French officials are using DNA samples from relatives and dental records to identify the remains. Yesterday (Tuesday)  Reuters reported Air France has said all its flights using long-haul Airbus jets will be equipped immediately with new speed sensors after last week's disaster over the Atlantic

CNN say the death toll from a suicide attack on a five-star hotel in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar rose to at least 15 people Wednesday, including two U.N. employees, authorities said.  Three suicide attackers shot their way onto the grounds of the Pearl Continental Hotel, which is often frequented by foreigners and diplomats and set off a car bomb Tuesday night. At least 64 were wounded, according to Qhazi Jamil, senior superintendent of Peshawar police. The dead U.N. employees were a Serbian national working for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and a UNICEF worker from the Philippines. The assailants fired on security guards at the hotel's entrance gate and forced their way inside before setting off the bomb, Jamil said. According to the BBC (view link), 18 were already confirmed dead following the bombing. Rescuers are searching for victims. Rescue teams are picking through the rubble of the Pearl Continental Hotel recovering bodies and looking for more people trapped in the debris. The UN says two of its employees - one from Serbia and the other from the Philippines - are among the dead. A spate of bombings has followed an army crackdown on Taliban militants. The death toll rose to 18 with the discovery of three bodies early on Wednesday. At least 60 people have been injured. Police say gunmen stormed the outer security barrier at the hotel before blowing up a vehicle containing about 500kg of explosives.

 UN health officials have called an emergency meeting to discuss swine flu, amid rumours that the first global flu pandemic in 40 years will be declared. The World Health Organization announced the meeting after a steep rise in the number of cases in Australia. Hong Kong on Thursday announced it was closing all its nurseries and primary schools for two weeks after 12 students tested positive for the virus. The last global flu pandemic came in 1968 over the Hong Kong flu. That pandemic killed about one million people. A disease is classed as a pandemic when transmission between humans becomes widespread in two regions of the world. Click here to read the full article from the BBC.

 An 88-year-old man reputed to be a violent racist has opened fire in front of crowds of people inside Washington DC's Holocaust museum, killing a guard. The gunman, named by local officials as James von Brunn, was himself shot by police officers. He is said to be seriously ill in hospital. American media reports say the man is a white supremacist who has served time in prison for violent offences. US President Barack Obama said he was "shocked and saddened" by the incident. "This outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms," he said in a statement. Israel's embassy in Washington also condemned the attack. Click here for the full article from the BBC. The LA Times adds the FBI and hate-group trackers knew of his racist and anti-Semitic rants but are unsure whether he may have acted on his own...

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, is dissatisfied that her lakeside home is still guarded by authorities despite her house arrest officially ending in May, her lawyer has said. The Nobel laureate, currently held in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison, said friends had been denied access to her residence despite the fact that police told her in May that the house arrest had been cancelled. The 63-year-old is on trial for breaching the terms of her house arrest following a bizarre incident in which a US man swam to the property in May. She faces up to five years in jail if convicted. For Daily Telegraph full article, click here.

The streets are clogged with traffic so we get on the highway, the windows down and music blaring. I am with two friends, driving through Tehran after midnight, enjoying the cool air with no particular destination. One of them grabs a poster for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from a passing motorcyclist and begins waving it at the other drivers, most of them stunned that a fashionable woman wearing hijab lite would support the hard-line Iranian president. "Are you serious?" one man tells her. "Do you know what Ahmadinejad's [Islamic] Guidance Patrol would do to you if they saw you?" A car full of other friends pulls up alongside. They are holding up posters of former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a moderate who is Ahmadinejad's top rival in the presidential election Friday. For Borzou Dargahi's LA Times full article, click here.

Signs of revival and progress have begun to emerge out of Zimbabwe ’s devastated and inflation ravaged economy, just over 100 days after the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, joined President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party in a coalition government mandated to wring some life out of the debris that the country had become. At first, data from the Central Statistical Office showed inflation at -3.1 percent and -2.3 percent for the months of January and February respectively. Zimbabwe’s economic environment has to date gained some notable positives with the latest statistics from the CSO revealing that the country's consumer inflation stood at -1.1 percent month-on-month in April compared to -3.0 percent for the month of month. The year on year inflation rate was however, not available, the CSO said. Previous official figures showed inflation at 231 million percent in July last year, but economists said it rose far higher. Where shop shelves were virtually empty last year after the government introduced price controls, stock levels have significantly improved and, said the Retailers Association of Zimbabwe this week, businesses and supermarkets are currently experiencing a boom. “Things have steadily been improving since the onset of the inclusive government as evidenced by improved stock levels and the purchasing power that has been restored to the multiple currencies that we are using at the moment,” said David Govere, a renowned industrialist and member of the Retailers Association of Zimbabwe. The country is currently using a multi-currency system for all transactions after suspending the Zimbabwe Dollar for at least a year last month. Currencies such as the United States Dollar, South Africa Rand, British Pound and the Euro are in circulation in Zimbabwe . The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe said these currencies have firmed up in value since formation of the inclusive government with US$1 now buying two standard loaves of bread. The same amount also buys half a dozen of eggs while a pint of milk is fetching for half the same amount. Shops and businesses have restored credit card facilities, something that businesses abandoned when Zimbabwe ’s economy became hyperinflationary. Managers at leading businesses such as Barbours, Greatermans and Edgars confirmed in a survey that they have restored credit card facilities. Under the scheme, customers pay half the amount for a commodity and then pay the rest after up to six months. “The decision to reintroduce this scheme (credit card) was made after realising that the country’s economy is beginning to normalise and is improving,” said a Terrence Mangove, a manager at an Edgars outlet. Confidence that Zimbabwe ’s economy is on the recovery path is growing both at home and internationally. Finance Minister and Secretary General of the MDC, Tendai Biti has projected that inflation will fall to 10% by the end of the current year. Tsvangirai retorted this week that the economy is slowly beginning to improve, saying “there is change taking place and that change must be consolidated”. A spokesperson for the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) said although some members of the representative organisation were still finding it difficult to operate at full capacity, the environment has bettered as compared to previous years. “Capacity for most firms is still low but we believe that this is better than the past few years were operational capacity nose-dived to as low as below 10 percent,” he said. The CZI added that “at the moment capacity and utilisation has improved but it is still below 60 percent and a lot still need to be done for the industry sector to restore maximum capacity utilization”. Businesses and companies reduced operations and cut production when the local economic environment worsened last year, with the mining sector worst affected. The situation has however, significantly improved and the country’s mining sector – which was blighted by operational constraints last year – has begun to glitter and blossom.

The spread of the swine flu virus - H1N1 - is the first global influenza epidemic in 41 years. But the World Health Organization says the pandemic is only 'moderate in severity.' The World Health Organization on Thursday acknowledged what many health experts have been saying for weeks: The outbreak of the novel H1N1 virus is a pandemic. "The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic," Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, said in a Geneva teleconference. "This virus is now unstoppable." In a letter sent to WHO member countries, Chan said that she was raising the agency's infectious disease alert to Phase 6, its highest level, in recognition of the fact that the virus is undergoing community wide transmission in Australia as well as in North America. Such spread in two distinct regions of the world is the primary criterion for raising the alert level. But the agency said that the pandemic is only "moderate in severity" and cautioned against overreaction to the increased alert level. The announcement marks the advent of the first global influenza epidemic in 41 years. The last one was the Hong Kong flu epidemic of 1968, which killed an estimated 1 million people worldwide. Click here for the LA Times full article. The Telegraph also reports that millions of people in Britain could be infected with swine flu and thousands of schools could be closed as the first flu pandemic for 40 years was officially declared by the World Health Organisation.

The BBC: Greece would not accept a short loan of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum as it would "legalise their snatching", the Culture Minister said.Antonis Samaras said any loan would mean renouncing Greece's claim to the 2,500-year-old sculptures. The Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, have been in London since they were sold to the museum in 1817. Greece hopes one day to display the collection in the Acropolis Museum, which opens in Athens next weekend. The Marbles originally decorated the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis of Athens. Hundreds of sculptures were stripped from the Parthenon in 1801-2 on the orders of English aristocrat Lord Elgin, who later sold them to British Museum. The museum holds 75 metres of the original 160 metres of the frieze that ran round the inner core of the building. Of the surviving items some 90 are in London and 97 in Athens. In many cases, part of a figure is in London, and part in Athens. Copies of those held in London have been made for the new Acropolis museum.

The United States is braced for further "reckless" actions by North Korea, including a possible third nuclear bomb test, as the Security Council decides whether to impose new sanctions on the rogue state. According to US intelligence sources, there are "fresh indications" that North Korea is preparing another nuclear test and a test-launch of its Taepodong-2 ballistic missile. The sources, quoted by CNN and Fox Television, added that Pyongyang was also planning to re-start its reactor at Yongbyon to make more weapons-grade plutonium. The reports come as the Security Council prepares a range of economic and military sanctions against North Korea in punishment for its second nuclear bomb test last month. For Peter Foster's Daily Telegraph full article, click  here.

After an exuberant campaign season, voters across Iran voted today in a fiercely contested presidential election with potentially broad domestic and international repercussions. Long lines began forming outside polling stations well before they opened, suggesting a large turnout. Washington and capitals around the world are tensely anticipating the outcome of the vote, which pits incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi and two other challengers. The Islamic Republic and the West are at odds over Tehran's nuclear program and support for militant groups that oppose Israel. Pro-U.S. Arab leaders have decried Iran's rising ambitions. The next president, analysts say, will play a key role in formulating Iran's response to the Obama administration's offer of comprehensive talks after a 30-year cold war between Tehran and Washington, which is rooting for Ahmadinejad to lose. For Borzou Daragahi's LA Times full article, click  here.

The AP: The Taliban claimed responsibility Saturday for recent suicide attacks in Pakistan, including the assassination of a leading moderate cleric and the bombing of a Peshawar hotel frequented by foreigners. Thousands of people were expected to gather Saturday for the funeral of Sarfraz Naeemi, whose death in a blast at his seminary in Lahore triggered a wave of anger and revulsion toward militants in the country's cultural capital. Police said the bombing was a targeted assassination of the cleric, who had recently condemned suicide attacks as un-Islamic, denounced the Taliban as murderers and "a stigma on Islam." He also threw his support behind the military operation against the Taliban in the Swat Valley region. The seminary bombing was echoed within minutes at a mosque used by troops in the northwestern city of Noshehra. The attacks took the count of suicide bombings to five in eight days, including a huge blast at the luxury Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar that killed eleven people, some of whom were foreign U.N. workers. Taliban commander Saeed Hafiz claimed responsibility for the blasts at the seminary, hotel and in Noshehra on behalf of Tehrik-i-Taliban, the group headed by Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, local media reported. The group has threatened a campaign of attacks in retaliation for the Swat offensive.

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Macedonia will send 70 more troops to Afghanistan, says Macedonian  newspaper  Utrinski Vesnik . The government of Macedonia decided to send more troops to Afghanistan in a help to the others, who already are there. Macedonian Defense Minister Zoran Konjanovski said that the new soldiers will join the old parts in Afghanistan at the end of next year. Experts say that is a good sign for NATO, to whom Macedonia wants to join. Till now Macedonian contingent in Nato has 170 soldiers. According to the newspaper with the new ones, Macedonia raises its account in Afghanistan with 40 %.

Washington Post: A prominent Cuban neurosurgeon said on Friday she had received permission to leave Cuba, 15 years after breaking ranks with former leader Fidel Castro over the communist-ruled nation's healthcare system. Hilda Molina, 66, had complained publicly for years about being denied permission to travel to visit her aging mother, son and grandchildren in Argentina. She asked the Argentine government to intercede on her behalf last year. "I think this is an isolated gesture," Molina told Reuters at her home in Havana, saying she believed Cuban authorities had given her a travel permit only because of her 90-year-old mother's deteriorating health. Molina said she was booked on a flight out of Havana on Saturday but had only been granted permission to leave Cuba for three months. She said she wanted to live in Cuba and planned to return after looking after her mother in Argentina. "I think things will only change in this regard when no one has to ask for permission to leave Cuba," she added, referring to how critics of Cuba's one-party state have often been denied permission to travel abroad.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds a decisive lead in his reelection bid, Iran's Interior Ministry said this morning, while his main rival claimed victory and alleged election irregularities. Ministry officials said that with more than 75% of ballots counted, the incumbent had received nearly two-thirds of the vote. More than 46 million people were eligible to vote, officials said. Official results are expected today, but news outlets loyal to the president claimed that he had scored a decisive victory over moderate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who had received about a third of the votes counted. This morning, security forces shut down Mousavi's offices, his campaign said. The election is expected to have broad domestic and international repercussions, as the Islamic Republic and the West remain at odds over Tehran's nuclear program and support for militant groups that oppose Israel. The results were being closely watched by officials in capitals around the world. President Obama said the "robust debate" during the campaign suggests change may come to Iran. For Borzou Daragahi's LA Times full article, click here.

A bomb blast has killed at least seven people at a market in the north-western Pakistani town of Dera Ismail Khan. Many more people were wounded in the blast, reports said. "It seems the bomb was planted. At the moment, we have at least seven dead and 50 wounded," government official Syed Mohsin Shah told Reuters news agency. In February, 25 people were killed in a bomb attack on a funeral procession in the town, near Pakistan's restive tribal belt. The market attack comes amid a government offensive against Taliban militants in Pakistan's north-western provinces in which three people are believed to have been killed. Another bomb attack in January killed five people in the town. Dera Ismail Khan has also been the scene of a number of deadly attacks targeted at the local Shia population since 2007. In a separate development, Pakistani authorities are investigating reports of a suspected US military drone attack in south Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan. The area is known as a main stronghold of the Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, whose movement has acknowledged responsibility for a number of the recent suicide bombings in Pakistan, the BBC said.

Reuters: At least 40 south Sudanese soldiers and civilians were killed when tribal fighters ambushed river barges carrying U.N. food aid, in the latest in a string of ethnic attacks, officials said on Sunday. Armed members of the Jikany Nuer group opened fire on 27 boats loaded with emergency rations destined for an area controlled by the rival Lou Nuer tribe on Friday afternoon, the U.N. World Food Program said. Hundreds have been killed and more than 135,000 displaced in south Sudan in 2009 in a surge of tribal killings rooted it long-standing feuds over cattle but aggravated by political discontent and weapons left over from two decades of civil war. The minister of information for Upper Nile State Thon Mom told Reuters Friday's attack killed at least 40 people including troops from the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) who were escorting the convoy. "Women and children who were on the boats were also killed, either directly by bullets or by drowning after jumping into the river," said SPLA spokesman Malaak Ayuen Ajok. He said the Jikany Nuer fighters had first demanded to search some of the barges, south of the settlement of Nasir on the Sobat river, suspecting they were carrying arms and ammunition to their Lou Nuer enemy.

China has been accused of secretly salvaging a sunken British submarine with the remains of 18 dead sailors on board. HMS Poseidon sank in 130ft of water on June 9, 1931, after a collision with a Chinese merchant steamer 20 miles north of the British naval base at Weihai. Relatives and survivors had always thought the vessel remained on the sea bed along with the lost men.But American historian Steven Schwankert claims the Chinese salvaged the vessel without fanfare in the early 1970s to test the skills of their naval special forces and newly formed underwater recovery units.

The BBC: A Cuban exile blogger from Miami says he used a female internet alter ego to gain access to a member of the usually impervious family of Fidel Castro. Luis Dominguez said he used the character to begin an online relationship with 40-year-old Antonio, the son of ex-leader Mr Castro. He refused to apologise for the deception, saying he wanted to show the "opulent lifestyles" of the Castros. Cuban authorities have made no comment regarding the online chats. Many internet users have engaged in a series of flirtatious chats only to find the person they have met online is not who they say they are. As anyone who covers Cuban politics and the Castro family knows, gaining access of any sort is far from easy. The Castro family has had a massive security cordon around it for decades - in large part due to the many attempts to remove the island's communist government from power. Mr Dominguez used Antonio Castro's alleged weakness for young women and sports.

North Korea denounced new sanctions against it adopted by the U.N. Security Council and said it would push forward with its nuclear weapons program anyway. In a statement Saturday criticizing the United Nations, North Korea for the first time said it would begin building nuclear weapons using highly enriched uranium. An early research effort using uranium became the source of conflict between North Korea and the U.S. in 2002 under President George W. Bush. Until now, North Korea has only said it was using plutonium to try to build atomic bombs. Pyongyang also said it would "weaponize" its existing plutonium, which outside experts believe is enough to build about six or seven bombs, and said there was "no reason" for it to give up its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. For Evan Ramstad's Wall Street Journal full article, click here.

The AP: The Iranian Embassy in Moscow says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has put off a visit to Russia, and it is unclear whether he will come at all. Ahmadinejad had been expected to travel to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg and meet on Monday with President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of a regional summit. But the embassy says he will not come to Russia on Monday and that further information is not available. The change in plans came amid street protests in Iran following Ahmadinejad's re-election in a bitterly disputed vote Friday. The embassy did not give a reason for the decision. The summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ends Tuesday. Iran has observer status in the group.

The Daily Telegraph says The Prime Minister faced accusations of an “establishment stitch-up” after telling MPs that an investigation into the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein would be held behind closed doors. He cited national security as the reason — a claim attacked by MPs of all sides and the families of soldiers killed in the conflict. Mr Brown said the inquiry’s findings would not be published until after next year’s general election — a timetable derided by the Conservatives. In a statement to the Commons, Mr Brown said the inquiry would cover the period from 2001 to this year’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq. He said it would be led by a committee of privy counsellors, headed by a former Whitehall civil servant, but would not seek to apportion blame. Tony Blair, who caused division in his own party by pushing ahead with the invasion alongside America, is expected to give evidence. Mr Brown ruled out a public inquiry because he feared it would take as long and be as indecisive as the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday, which was set up in 1998 and has yet to report on the 1972 shootings in Londonderry. The BBC reports opposition parties and campaigners have condemned Gordon Brown's decision to hold an independent inquiry into the Iraq war behind closed doors. Tory leader David Cameron accused Mr Brown of "an establishment stitch-up", while the Lib Dems threatened to boycott the "secret" inquiry.

The BBC says the world's newest economic grouping is to hold its first summit in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg today (Tuesday). Bric is named after its four member states - emerging giants Brazil, Russia, India and China. They are expected to put efforts to improve the global economy at the top of the agenda. The BBC's Rupert Wingfield Hayes, in Russia, says Bric's main goal is to force the West to give greater recognition to the developing giants. China is now the world's third biggest economy, while Russia, India and Brazil are catching up with many key European economies. The term Bric was coined by US investment bank Goldman Sachs which used it to describe the growing power of emerging market economies in 2001. Its research suggested that the four developing economies could be amongst the world's strongest by 2050. The meeting in Yekaterinburg, a city some 1,420km (880 miles) east of Moscow, will include presidents Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, Hu Jintao of China, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The group repeated their long-standing calls that emerging economies like theirs' be given greater representation at major institutions such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. Click here to read the article from The Scotsman.

Borzou Daragahi reports in the LA times that hundreds of thousands of Iranian protesters defied authorities Monday and marched to Tehran's Freedom Square, as the Islamic Republic's supreme leader ordered an investigation into allegations of vote fraud, a move the opposition described as little more than an attempt to dampen anger over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered the Guardian Council, which is filled with his own appointees and led by a hard-line cleric close to Ahmadinejad, to examine challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi's claims of vote fraud. Khamenei's order came hours before the march, amid a days-long buildup of tension. Meanwhile, Times Online say Iran was braced for more rallies today – and possible violence – after hardline paramilitaries killed eight protesters yesterday in the aftermath of a huge rally against the disputed presidential election result. State radio said at least seven people were killed when “thugs” attacked and vandalised government buildings at the end of the rally, which had been banned. “A military post was attacked with the intention of looting its weapons. Unfortunately, seven of our citizens were killed and a number of them injured,” it said. Another demonstrator was shot in the head outside a local base of the Basij Islamic volunteer militia, which was set on fire. According to the BBC (view link), Iranian state radio says seven people were killed during Monday's protests in Tehran over the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The reports said the deaths came after "thugs" attacked a military post. The country's powerful Guardian Council has described the results of Friday's disputed poll as "provisional". Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi wants them annulled, alleging widespread fraud. Rival marches are planned at the same site on Tuesday. The demonstrations called by supporters of both President Ahmadinejad and Mr Mousavi are due to take place in Vali Asr Square in central Tehran.