World Digest

IRAN

Supreme Leader Rebukes President

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, publicly rebuked the president over his removal of a top official, in a rare show of discontent with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The rebuke, issued in the news media Monday, raised questions of whether the supreme leader is backing off support of Ahmadinejad in the president's battle for a second term in June 12 elections.

Khamenei holds ultimate power in Iran, at the top of the clerical hierarchy and above elected figures.

-- Associated Press

Journalist in Clinic

The Iranian American journalist on a hunger strike for two weeks to protest her eight-year prison sentence in Iran was briefly hospitalized after she intensified her fast by refusing to drink water, Reporters Without Borders said Monday.

The group said 32-year-old Roxana Saberi, whom Iran has accused of spying for the United States, was taken Friday to a clinic in Tehran's Evin prison and was released within a day after she drank water again.

-- Associated Press

GULF OF ADEN

S. Korea Aids North

In a rare instance of recent cooperation between the two Koreas, South Korean snipers hovering in a helicopter chased away pirates pursuing a North Korean freighter in the Gulf of Aden on Monday. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said one of their country's warships sent the helicopter to assist the North Korean vessel after receiving a distress call. The North Korean ship later sent several thank-you messages.

-- Associated Press

Hague Tribunal Rebuffs Liberia's Taylor: Former Liberian president Charles Taylor lost a bid for his acquittal on war crimes charges in the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Taylor is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from his support of guerrillas in neighboring Sierra Leone's 1991-2001 civil war.

Spanish Judge to Pursue Probe of Gaza Raid: A Spanish judge decided to go ahead with a probe of top Israeli military figures in connection with an aerial strike on the Gaza Strip in 2002 that killed 15 people, including a suspected Hamas leader.

-- From News Services