BBC: (follow link) Former US President Bill Clinton has arrived in North Korea on a surprise visit, apparently to discuss the fate of two jailed US reporters. He is the highest-profile American to visit since his own secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went there in 2000. No official reason for his trip has been given, but analysts say he will try to free Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were recently jailed for 12 years. He may also try to ease the deadlock over the North's nuclear ambitions. The last visit to North Korea by a former American president - Jimmy Carter in 1994 - led to an important step forward in nuclear negotiations during an otherwise tense period. Tensions are also high now. In addition to the reporters' detention, North Korea has recently conducted a string of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of repeated calls from the UN Security Council.

Reuters: Australian police arrested four men linked to a Somali militant group on Tuesday, accusing them of planning a suicide attack on an army base and raising concerns al Qaeda-linked militants were seeking targets outside Africa. The four were arrested in dawn raids on 19 properties across the southern city of Melbourne, after a seven-month investigation involving three police forces and Australia's national security agency ASIO. Officials said Australia's terrorism warning alert would remain at medium level, where it has been since 2003, but Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the arrests showed threats remained. "The sobering element to emerge from today's development is the reminder to all Australians that the threat of terrorism is alive and well," he said in Cairns. It is the latest high-profile terrorism case that Australian police and intelligence agencies have uncovered. Australia's biggest terrorism trial ended in February when Muslim cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika was jailed for 15 years for leading a cell that had planned to bomb a 2005 football match in Melbourne. Altogether, 12 people were jailed over the plot. In the latest case, the four men arrested were aged between 22 and 26 and were all Australian citizens with Somali and Lebanese backgrounds. Police said they were linked to the al Shabaab militant group. One man, Nayaf El Sayed, 25, was officially charged with conspiring to plan or prepare a terrorist act. Police were granted extra time to question three others, Saney Aweys, Yacqub Khayre and Abdirahman Ahmed. Sayed did not enter a plea or apply for bail, and he refused to stand for the magistrate before he was remanded in jail to reapppear in court on October 26. "He believes he should not stand for any man except God," his counsel told the hearing. A fifth man, in custody on other matters, was also being questioned and police have not ruled out more arrests. Prosecutors told the Melbourne Magistrate's Court they had evidence some of the men had taken part in training in Somalia and at least one had engaged in frontline fighting in Somalia. They said police had evidence of phone conversations, text messages and surveillance footage, including footage of one of the suspects outside the Holsworthy army base in suburban Sydney. The court heard the men planned to seek a fatwa, or religious ruling, to support an attack on the Holsworthy army base.

The Guardian: Dozens of militant supporters of President Hugo Chavez stormed an opposition TV station yesterday in an escalation of Venezuela's "media war". Around 30 activists with red berets forced their way into the Caracas headquarters of Globovision, lobbed tear gas and threatened staff with handguns. The raid came amid a government crackdown on critics of Chavez's socialist revolution, a campaign which human rights groups have condemned as an attack on free speech. In recent days the government has revoked the licences of dozens of radio stations and proposed a law which would jail people deemed guilty of "media crimes" for up to four years. Footage aired on Globovision showed activists from the UPV, a radical left-wing party which backs the president and dresses in quasi-military gear, arriving on motorbikes and rushing on foot into the station. The intruders, led by a prominent "Chavista" named Lina Ron, waved banners and reportedly injured a guard and a police officer while tear gas seeped through the complex. Chavez has repeatedly assailed Globovision – the South American country's last opposition TV network – as an instrument of oligarchs and US imperialists who are waging "media terrorism". However, the government swiftly distanced itself from the raid. "We condemn this attack energetically and reject this type of violent action against Globovision," said the interior minister, Tareck El Aissami. "We don't accept that violence is the instrument to solve our differences." Network executives rejected the condemnation as hollow. "I can only think [the attack] was an order from Miraflores," said Guillermo Zuloaga, in reference to the presidential palace. The government has named Globovision as its main target in a "media war" to rebut what it says is a campaign of lies and smears against the revolution. Authorities last month fined Globovision $2m for back taxes and officials have twice raided its president's property, saying he illegally resold cars and broke environmental regulations by keeping stuffed animals. The government also opened an investigation against the channel for "inciting panic" after it reported on a small earthquake recently which affected Caracas. RCTV, another channel which criticised Chavez, went off the air in 2007 after its licence was not renewed. Other private networks which have stayed neutral in Venezuela's polarised political climate continue operating. Chavez, a former tank commander with a flair for communication, has greatly expanded state media during his decade-long rule. Last week he moved to further clip the wings of private media. A draft law was unveiled which threatens to jail journalists and broadcasters who "harm the interests of the state", "cause panic" or "disturb social peace". Some 34 radio stations had their licences revoked, the first of 240 which have been targeted, allegedly over irregular paperwork.

RTE: A US passenger plane en route from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Houston in Texas was forced to make an emergency landing in Miami, after severe turbulence left more than 26 passengers injured, four seriously. Continental Airlines said the Boeing 767 plane, with 168 passengers and 11 crew members on board, was about an hour from Miami when the turbulence started. One passenger described the incident, which lasted about ten seconds.'The plane just dropped,' 18-year-old Carolina Portella said. 'I just grabbed the hand of the person next to me and held on.' 14 people were taken to local hospitals in Miami. Those with minor injuries were later flown to Houston along with the remaining passengers. An investigation of the incident is expected to begin soon.

The Telegraph: Lubna Hussein, a young Sudanese woman, will today learn if she is to be flogged on the orders of an Islamic court for the "crime" of wearing trousers. Sudan's public order police arrested Ms Hussein in a Khartoum restaurant with 12 other women a month ago for wearing "indecent clothing". Ten of the women accepted a punishment of 10 lashes each, but Ms Hussein's defiant stand against the charge with the other two women has gathered wide publicity and has embarrassed Sudan's strict ruling regime. "Flogging is a terrible thing – very painful and a humiliation for the victim," she told The Sunday Telegraph in her first interview with a Western newspaper at the weekend. "But I am not afraid of being flogged. I will not back down. "I want to stand up for the rights of women, and now the eyes of the world are on this case I have a chance to draw attention to the plight of women in Sudan." She will appear in court for the second time on Tuesday morning to hear her verdict. An earlier hearing was adjourned because Ms Hussein, a widow in her 30s, waived the immunity from prosecution she is accorded as an employee of the United Nations. "If I'm sentenced to be whipped, or to anything else, I will appeal," she said on Monday. "I will see it through to the end, to the constitutional court if necessary. And if the constitutional court says the law is constitutional, I'm ready to be whipped not 40 but 40,000 times."

Sudan Tribune: An unknown number of armed tribesmen from the Murle ethnic group raided a Lou Nuer village near Okobo country in Jonglei state over the weekend killing over 180 people and injuring some 31 others. The dawn raid on Lou territory comes months after bloody fighting broke out last February between the two tribes when some 753 people (300 Lou Nuer and 453 Murle) were killed in a revenge assault carried by the Lou Nuer against the Murle. Again in April, Murle attacked Akobo killing over 300 people. Akobo Commissioner Goi Jooyul Yol, appearing visibly shaken at a press conference in Bor Town on Monday morning, detailed that 100 women, 50 children and 11 SPLA soldiers are among the dead in Akobo. "Of the 29 wounded, 3 are SPLA and the rest are civilians," he said. "Dozens of children and women are still missing and most are believed to be either killed or abducted – by the attackers," he said adding that a "thorough" search by local authorities is underway, he added.

A salvo of Taliban rockets shook Kabul's diplomatic district yesterday as insurgents ramped up attacks countrywide in a bid to derail presidential elections, less than three weeks away. At least nine rockets rained down on the capital. Two of them landed close to the British and American embassies. Police said a child was hurt in a residential district and buildings were damaged but no one was killed. Indiscriminate rocket attacks are not uncommon but yesterday's barrage was bigger than anything experienced in the capital for years and it marked the beginning of a day of violence which saw five people killed in Zabul and a failed assassination attempt against a provincial governor. The rockets shattered Kabul's sense of oasis and reminded people in the capital that the insurgents were never far away. President Hamid Karzai was in Gardez, in the south-east of the country, where he urged the Taliban, who have vowed to boycott the elections, to take part in the poll. Instead, the Taliban said they had fired 12 rockets at Kabul's airport, which the President uses to fly to and from his campaign dates. Nato also have a base there but officials said all the rockets missed. Meanwhile, the Governor of Wardak province, Mohammad Halim Fedaye, narrowly escaped when a roadside bomb hit his convoy on Highway One, a notoriously dangerous road which links Kabul with the Taliban's old capital in Kandahar. Thousands of extra foreign troops are being drafted into Afghanistan to improve security for the August 20 poll but officials fear as many as 600 polling stations will be kept closed because of violence. The attacks came as the US ambassador urged candidates to spell out their manifestos... click here for more from GRN correspondent, Jerome Starkey's article in The Independent.

The New York Times: Exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer said on Wednesday she believed two of her children had been coerced by Chinese authorities into writing letters accusing her of orchestrating unrest last month in Xinjiang region. China has repeatedly said Kadeer triggered the unrest and this week Xinhua news agency quoted a letter from one of her children explicitly saying she was responsible.

"I believe it is against their conscience, against their will, to force them to say things against me. I believe that it is a form of dictatorship imposed upon them by the government," Kadeer told journalists.

Xinhua said the letters were written by Kadeer's son, Khahar, and daughter Roxingul, as well as younger brother Memet. Some of her children still in Xinjiang have been jailed or held under house arrest for years. China has protested to the Australian government, which granted Kadeer a visa to visit a film festival showing a documentary about her life. It also condemned Japan's decision to allow the activist to visit. Kadeer said China should not be pressuring other countries. "I think it is extremely inappropriate for the Chinese government to use its muscle to pressure other countries," she said. "I believe the Chinese government is basically trying to impose its authoritarianism on the whole world." In Xinjiang's worst ethnic violence in decades, Uighurs on July 5 attacked Han Chinese in the regional capital of Urumqi after police tried to break up a protest against attacks on Uighur workers in south China. The official death toll from the riots stands at 197, most of them Han, the majority group in China's 1.3 billion population. Almost all the others were Uighurs, a Muslim people native to Xinjiang and culturally tied to Central Asia.

CNN: A shooting at an LA Fitness gym outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, left at least four people dead and several others wounded Tuesday, police said. "We have four confirmed deceased," said Charles Moffatt, Allegheny County Police Superintendent. "We have at least 10 wounded in various hospitals throughout the area." The shooter, whose name was not immediately released, was among the fatalities, said Gary Vituccio, manager of Collier township. The shooting victims arrived at the three major hospitals in the area. A spokeswoman for Mercy Hospital confirmed five female shooting victims arrived at the facility with multiple gunshot wounds. Three were in serious condition and two were listed as critical, she said. Allegheny General Hospital received two more victims at its trauma center, a spokesman said. Both were women and were listed in fair condition, he said. A St. Clair Hospital spokesman said three shooting victims arrived there Tuesday night; two were in stable condition and one patient, who was shot in the chest, died at about 8:55 p.m. Perry Calabro of nearby Bridgeville told CNN he was between racquetball games at the gym when he suddenly heard screaming and multiple gunshots. He said he ran out and didn't see the gunman or others. Other witnesses told CNN affiliate WTAE that the lights went out before they saw flashes in dark -- what they later realized was gunfire. Witnesses told WTAE that a man unrecognized by the gym's staff shot people in a Latin dance class. A witness identified as Nicole told WTAE that about 30 women were in the class when "a middle-aged white male walked into the class. He had a big gym bag." "He looked out of place in a class full of women," according to the witness, who told WTAE the man put down the bag, turned off the lights and opened fire.

AFP: A roadside bomb ripped through a trailer packed with people in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing 21 Afghan civilians and wounding six, defence officials told AFP.The blast took place in the southern province of Helmand, defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP. "In Sangin district a roadside bomb struck the trailer of a tractor, martyring 21 civilians and wounding six others. They were all civilians," Azimi told AFP. In rural Afghanistan, farm tractors often have trailers attached in order to transport people.

The Guardian: There has been "considerable loss of life" after a ferry capsized in rough seas between islands in Tonga, Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said today. Rudd was speaking at a meeting of South Pacific leaders in Sydney, almost 24 hours after the Princess Ashika turned over and sank during a night crossing between the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa and outlying islands. About 50 people are listed as missing, many of them women and children. One body has been pulled from the sea. One survivor said the ferry overturned after a heavy swell apparently shifted cargo to one side. The Matangi Tonga news website reported that 96 people had been listed as travelling on the Princess Ashika and 50 of them including 23 passengers and 27 crew survived. In another report, the website quoted one survivor, Siaosi Lavaka, as saying he had only seen male survivors in the lifeboats. "No women or children made it," he told the site, adding that his mother was among those missing. He said he believed the lower deck became flooded by rough seas and then cargo shifted to one side, capsizing the ferry. "We woke up to the sound of shouting and we jumped off," he said. Two maritime search aeroplanes and three boats from New Zealand are searching for survivors amid a trail of floating debris stretching for 10 miles. Rescuers believe anyone who escaped from the boat could survive for some time given the 25C water temperature. The 34-year-old Japanese-built vessel went into service with Tonga's Shipping Corporation of Polynesia last month after the previous ferry was deemed unsafe. A new boat being built is due to begin work in 2011. The boat sank around midnight Wednesday Tongan time about 55 miles north-east of Nuku'alofa on Tongapatu, the main island of the 169 in the archipelago, 36 of which are inhabited.

The Telegraph: The search for Madeleine McCann has moved from Europe to Australia, after private dectectives were given information about an Australian who they believe could be linked to her disappearance.A report in the Daily Mail said detectives hired by the McCanns were seeking an Australian man. However, the Sun said an Australian woman was believed to hold vital clues to Madeleine's abduction in May 2007. The Daily Mail said investigators believe the man is of "potential significance" to their hunt and police will later issue a photofit of him in an appeal for information. Detectives are keen to trace the Australian because of a conversation they had with a Briton at a bar in Barcelona three days after Madeleine's disappearance from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. Police will also release details of the bar. The Sun quoted "a source close to the investigation" as saying: "What this Australian is reported to have said is of enough significant interest to launch a hunt for her." The source said Madeleine could be in Australia. "We don't know where she is. "She could still be in Spain, back in Australia, or anywhere else. "But we need to find her quickly." The paper said the British witness, who was on holiday, says he spoke to the woman during the night of May 6, 2007. The source said: "He only came forward recently and there are reasons for that. "He has been checked out and seems a credible source." Australian Federal Police have said at this stage they were not investigating the allegations. Madeleine, who would be six now, disappeared from her bed while her parents Kate and Gerry dined in their holiday complex. Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCann family, told the Daily Mail: "We want the public's help to identify someone. We are making an appeal based on new information." He refused to give further details.

BBC (follow link):A court in India has sentenced to death three people for carrying out bombings that killed more than 50 people in Mumbai (Bombay) in 2003. Haneef Sayyed, his wife Fahmeeda and Ashrat Ansari were convicted last month of murder and conspiracy. The explosions at the famous Gateway of India landmark and a busy market shocked the country and caused carnage. They were said to be in retaliation for the deaths of Muslims during riots in Gujarat state the year before. Hundreds have been killed in attacks in Mumbai in recent years. "The court has given death sentence to all three," chief public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said. "They wanted to target religious structures in the city. The responsible have been brought to book." The double car bombing in August 2003 left devastation at the Gateway of India and the Zaveri Bazaar market near the Mumba Devi temple in central Mumbai. About 180 people were injured. The three defendants, all of them from Mumbai, were charged under India's Prevention Of Terrorism Act, which has since been repealed. Two others were accused - Mohammed Ansari and Mohammed Hasan. They were discharged after a review by the special court last year. The three defendants were convicted of plotting the bombings in co-ordination with the Pakistan-based Islamic militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). LeT is also accused of carrying out other attacks in India in recent years, including the gun and bomb assault on Mumbai last November. The judge said all three defendants were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which they denied.

CNN: Judge Sonia Sotomayor was expected to easily win Senate confirmation Thursday as two more Republican senators announced their support for the country's first Hispanic high-court pick. The final day of debate is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., with a vote on her nomination scheduled for about 3 p.m. Legal sources said a White House swearing-in ceremony could happen as early as Friday. A new nationwide poll also showed that a majority of Americans now believe the Senate should confirm Sotomayor. Most Senate Democrats and Republicans, however, continued to express sharply differing opinions of Sotomayor's experience and temperament during the full chamber's second day of deliberations. Democrats praised the nominee as a fair and impartial jurist with an extraordinary life story. Many Republicans continued to portray her as a judicial activist intent on reinterpreting the law to conform with her own liberal political beliefs. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri, broke with the majority of Senate Republicans when he took to the Senate floor to announce that he would vote for Sotomayor despite disagreeing with several of her rulings. "There's been no significant finding against her. There's been no public uprising against her," Bond said. "I do not believe that the Constitution tells me that I should refuse to support her merely because I disagree with her on some cases. I will support her, I'll be proud for her, the community she represents, and the American dream she shows is possible." Later, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire also said he would vote in favor of Sotomayor's nomination, calling her qualified for the position. "Although Judge Sotomayor and I may not see eye-to-eye on all issues or share the same political ideologies, our democratic system should allow for such differences," Gregg said in statement. He lamented what he called the politicization of the judicial confirmation process, saying: "This is why I criticized the Democratic leadership's tactics to block highly qualified judicial nominees during the Bush administration, and these same principles still hold true for me now. Bond and Gregg increased to eight the number of Republican senators backing Sotomayor. They joined Maine's Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Indiana's Richard Lugar, Florida's Mel Martinez, South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, and Tennessee's Lamar Alexander. Sotomayor's confirmation by the Democratic-controlled Senate is now considered to be a certainty. If confirmed, Sotomayor, 55, would be 111th person to sit on the Supreme Court and the third woman justice.

The town of Botolan in Zambales province, north west of the Philippines’ capital Manila, off the coast facing the South China sea submerged in flood waters Thursday early evening with waters racing to the seat an estimated 8 knot speed. The town government was caught unaware and several thousand families in the largely agricultural town were evacuated, while some families are suspected to be caught in their homes or have sought refuge in higher grounds. Disaster response teams have arrived in the area a few hours the town submerged but damage and casualties are still known as the teams await for day light to allow an aerial assessment of the damage caused by the floods. The dike was built in the late nineties after the volcano Mount Pinatubo located near the town of Botolan erupted and its lahar deposits wiped out the natural waterways around the area. State engineering teams built new floodways to restore the old Bog-Ang river system and built dikes to guide the flow of flood waters inland into the South China Sea. Navy helicopters surveyed the area and found several residents on rooftops and trees clinging to life. Governor Amor Deloso (Liberal) reported on a national radio that flood waters have receded and 12 villages are flood free. Relief and rescue teams are being deployed Friday morning as 1,000 families have been evacuated overnight. Typhoon Morakot, located 26 kilometers west of Yaeyama islands near Taiwan with winds at 150 kilometers per hour on a Friday morning  is intensifying monsoon rains causing extremely unusual heavy rainfall on the western sections of the Philippines. Morakot is expected to head northwest into the Hongkong, South China region. Local governments across the island of Luzon were placed on alert as heavy rains increased to dangerous levels various key waterways threatening heavily populated areas located along riverbanks.

The Guardian: Officials in America and Pakistan are all but certain the country's most wanted man, Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, has been killed in a CIA missile strike. Mehsud is believed to have died when a drone plane fired two Hellfire missiles at a remote farmhouse where he was sheltering in South Waziristan, along the Afghan border, early on Wednesday. If confirmed, the death of Mehsud would represent a quantum leap for Pakistan's war against the rampaging Islamist militancy based in the tribal belt along the Afghan border. In Washington, White House officials told reporters there were "strong indications" Mehsud was dead. Pakistani television channels, quoting intelligence sources, said he had already been buried in his home village, Narkosa, near the strike site. The Pakistani interior minister, Rehman Malik, expressed cautious optimism, telling reporters that "a lot of information is pouring from that area but I'm unable to confirm unless I have solid evidence that he is dead". Western diplomats in Islamabad were similarly careful in their assessments. In perhaps the strongest sign that Mehsud is dead, reports emerged that his organisation, the feared Tehrik I Taliban Pakistan (TTP), plans to hold a leadership council today to elect a successor. Mehsud's most senior lieutenant, Hakeemullah Mehsud, is the favourite candidate. "It looks like this chapter is probably closed," said Imtiaz Gul, an analyst. In the wake of Wednesday's strike, Pakistani and American officials are sifting through intelligence intercepts, some of which indicate dismay and disarray in militant circles. The most conclusive proof would come through DNA evidence but it is difficult to obtain samples from the strike site. Taliban fighters have occupied surrounding villages and prevented anyone from leaving. Mehsud, thought to be 39 years old, is the most notorious militant commander in Pakistan – much more so than Osama bin Laden, also thought to be hiding along the Afghan border.

The BBC reports US film director and writer, John Hughes, who created some of the most famous comedies of the 1980s and 1990s, has died at the age of 59. The director died after a heart attack in New York, his spokeswoman said. Hughes was the director of such successful films as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. He was also a leading scriptwriter, penning films such as Pretty in Pink and Home Alone. Over the past decade, Hughes withdrew from Hollywood and became a farmer in the Midwestern state of Illinois. Hughes had been in Manhattan on a family visit when he died.

AP say Lisa Ling says her sister told her that she and another American journalist briefly touched North Korean soil before they were captured and detained for months in that communist country. Ling didn't elaborate when she spoke by phone with CNN Thursday, saying she would prefer that her sister, Laura, tell the story. Lisa Ling said her sister is still weak, exhausted and emotional, but happy to be with family. She said her sister told her family that her captors treated her humanely and she passed her time alone reading and walking circles around her cell for exercise. Lisa Ling says Euna Lee's 4-year-old daughter, Hana, has been following her mother around the house from room to room since Lee returned home Wednesday.

Reuters say bonfires blazed in Georgia to mark the first anniversary on Friday of the former Soviet republic's five-day war with Russia over breakaway South Ossetia, where the risk of renewed hostilities remains. Georgian forces launched an assault on South Ossetia late on August 7 after days of clashes with separatists and years of escalating tension with Moscow, drawing a devastating Russian counter-strike that ended on August 12. The war killed at least 390 civilians and at its height displaced more than 100,000. A year on, an unfulfilled ceasefire pact, sporadic gunfire and the withdrawal of monitors from pro-Western Georgia's two rebel regions keep alive the risk of renewed war. Midnight bonfires in the Georgian capital and other towns marked the first in a series of competing ceremonies on Friday in the South Caucasus country and rebel South Ossetia.

The Telegraph: Afghanistan's second democratic polls threaten to split the country along sectarian lines and undermine US and British-led peace efforts that are already under threat from the Taliban resurgence. Mr Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, hail from different ethnic groups and different regions. If neither wins outright in round one on 20 August, officials fear Afghanistan could be engulfed by violence reminiscent of the civil war of the 1990s. Although Mr Karzai, a Pashtun, is still the favourite, his supporters fear that a third candidate, Ashraf Ghani, could split the Pashtun vote. To avoid this, it has emerged that the President was trying to join forces with Mr Ghani to knock Mr Abdullah out of the race, the Independent reports. Officials said the President had offered Mr Ghani a job as chief executive – a new post described as similar to prime minister. "If Ghani agrees to the terms, Karzai will dump his team and move forward, with Karzai as President and Ghani as chief executive," a campaign official told the paper. Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador, are understood to have discussed the proposal with Mr Ghani late last month.The deal may appeal to him because he lacks the grassroots support the his rivals enjoy. Sources close to the President's inner circle confirmed that they had made an offer to Mr Ghani two weeks ago and the President's brother, Qayum Karzai, had made the first approach. His argument was that Mr Ghani couldn't win "and even if he did, he couldn't hold on to power". "For Karzai it's logical," said a businessman with friends in the President's team. "He doesn't want to divide the Pashtun vote, and if it goes to a second round he's going to lose."

Reuters: A fellow commander in the Pakistani Taliban insisted that Baitullah Mehsud, the movement's leader, was alive, the BBC reported on Saturday, rejecting government claims he had been eliminated in a U.S. drone strike. Hakimullah Mehsud, one of the most powerful commanders in the tribal region, described reports of Mehsud's death as "ridiculous" and said it was "the handiwork of the intelligence agencies," the BBC Urdu service website said. Some analysts suspected that the Pakistani Taliban's leadership was divided over who should become the next chief and that Hakimullah's denial aimed to buy time until a new leader emerged. Hakimullah, who controls fighters in the Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber tribal regions, is regarded as one of the leading contenders to replace Baitullah Mehsud. There was no independent confirmation of his claim, the BBC said.

A bloc of hard-liners insists that fellow conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad obey the country's supreme leader or risk losing the group's confidence. A hard-line group demanded Friday that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad obey the country's supreme leader or risk losing the confidence of lawmakers from his own conservative political camp. The Front Loyal to Imam and Leadership, a group of 14 conservative political parties and organizations led by prominent hard-liner Habibollah Asgaroladi, demanded that Ahmadinejad consult with his supporters before making appointments to his Cabinet, which he must submit for approval within 12 days. "If, God forbid, you pursue an approach different from the one elucidated by the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] because of your refusal to consult the honest friends of the revolution, or you lose public faith out of obstinacy, we fear that the regime would suffer irreparable damage," said the statement, according to the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency. For Borzou Daragahi's LA Times full article, click here.

The BBC: Iran has put more opposition activists and protesters on trial after disputed elections, Iranian media report. Those appearing in a Tehran court include French language teacher Clotilde Reiss, 23, who was detained a month ago. This is the second group of people brought before Iranian courts following violent protests in the wake of June's presidential elections. Last week more than 100 people appeared on charges including conspiracy. The detainees include several leading reformers. "The trial session of the second group of those accused of being involved in post-election unrest started this morning," the semi-official Fars news agency said. Irna news agency said Clotilde Reiss "is accused of collecting information and provoking rioters". It added that a female Iranian employee of the French embassy, named as Ashfar, was also appearing in the dock. Ms Reiss was stopped on 1 July as she prepared to leave Tehran, having spent five months as a university teaching assistant.

The BBC: The first elections in Sri Lanka since the civil war ended in May are being held in the Tamil-dominated north. The government has described the votes in Jaffna and Vavuniya, as well as in the southern province of Uva, as a step towards normality in the country. However, journalists from independent media have been banned from going to the northern towns to cover the voting. On Friday, Sri Lanka's defence ministry said it had arrested the new head of the defeated Tamil Tiger rebel group. Selvarasa Pathmanathan was detained abroad and was being questioned in Sri Lanka, it said. The rebels have confirmed the arrest.

Voters in the two towns of Jaffna and Vavuniya in the Tamil-dominated north will have to choose between a broad government coalition, the main opposition party, which is weaker, and an umbrella group supportive of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). There are smaller parties too, including a moderate Tamil one contesting Jaffna.

Times Online: An Australian woman has been forced to deny that she is the woman detectives are searching for in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Judith Aron, 53, was interviewed by Australian police after a friend tipped them off that she resembled the Victoria Beckham look-alike investigators hope to find. Ms Aron, who lives on Madeline Street in Melbourne, emphatically denied that she had any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance three years ago. "It's frightening, I don't know who this woman is. I don't know anything about this," she told the Herald Sun newspaper.