WORLD IN BRIEF

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Nobel Winner to Fight Iranian Closure Order

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has said she intends to defy an Iranian government order that her Center for Defense of Human Rights cease functioning.

In an e-mail to her literary agent in the United States, Ebadi said she and other group members "shall continue our activities. However, there is a high possibility that . . . they will arrest us." She called the government's actions illegal.

Ebadi received the Nobel in 2003 for her work with street children, women and dissidents -- work often in conflict with the Iranian government.

Last week, the government in Tehran declared her group illegal. In the e-mail to literary agent Wendy J. Strothman, Ebadi said she thought that the decision was triggered by the publication of her book "Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope."

Human Rights Watch, the New York-based advocacy group, on Tuesday called on the Iranian government to reverse its order.

The government has threatened to prosecute anyone acting on behalf of the center, which authorities contended did not have a proper permit.

The center applied for a permit when it was founded in 2001, but it never received a reply, according to Human Rights Watch.

Permits are not required by law, the New York group said, but the Iranian Interior Ministry has in practice mandated them.

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ASIA

· BEIJING -- An official from China's social security fund, Tong Daning, was executed in April after being convicted of spying for rival Taiwan, an agency spokesman said. Government employees have been required to watch a video about the case.

· BEIJING -- China confirmed that the country's first human case of the H5N1 bird flu virus surfaced in late 2003, two years earlier than originally reported, prompting the World Health Organization to call for greater transparency. The agency said a 24-year-old soldier based in Beijing was the first confirmed case in the world in the current outbreak.

· KABUL, Afghanistan -- Security forces killed seven insurgents and captured a former Taliban official, while rebels obstructed the distribution of emergency aid to thousands of flood-hit villagers in southeastern Afghanistan, officials said.

· KATHMANDU, Nepal -- The prime minister held meetings with political leaders to save the country's peace process a day after Maoist rebels said negotiations to end a decade-old insurgency were on the verge of collapse.

· COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- A car bomb exploded in the capital, Colombo, killing two people, as Tamil Tiger rebels lifted a water blockade that had sparked two weeks of fighting. Officials said a bomb had been fixed to the rear of a minivan carrying a Tamil politician opposed to the rebels. He survived, but his bodyguard and a 3-year-old boy were killed.

EUROPE

· MAKHACHKALA, Russia -- A car bomb killed a prosecutor in Russia's troubled North Caucasus region, and two police officers were shot dead as they arrived on the scene, officials said.

THE AMERICAS

· MEXICO CITY -- Supporters of presidential runner-up Andrés Manuel López Obrador blockaded the Agriculture Ministry and threw open highway toll gates in an escalation of protests against what they say was fraud in last month's election.

AFRICA

· N'DJAMENA, Chad -- Chad and Sudan agreed to restore diplomatic relations and reopen their volatile border, closed in mid-April after rebel raids that Chad blamed on Sudan.

· KHARTOUM, Sudan -- July was the most dangerous month for humanitarian workers in Sudan's Darfur region, where eight were killed, and afforded the worst access to those in need since the conflict began 3 1/2 years ago, four major aid agencies said in a statement.

· HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Authorities have arrested more than 2,000 people accused of money laundering since the introduction last week of a currency reform intended to tame the world's highest inflation rate and prop up the economy.

-- From Staff Reports and News Services