World Digest: Opposition's Mehdi Karroubi softens stance on Iran's leadership

Tuesday, January 26, 2010; A07

Iran

Opposition figure softens his position

In a major shift, a senior opposition figure announced that he now recognizes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the head of Iran's government while standing by

his assertions that the presidential election was rigged, the opposition leader's son said on Monday.

Mehdi Karroubi's new position is a retreat from his statements after the June 12 election, when he insisted that Ahmadinejad's government was illegitimate.

The election sparked widespread street protests against Ahmadinejad's government, but in recent months the movement has appeared to broaden, sharply criticizing the clerical leadership, including the Islamic republic's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The softening aimed to show that the opposition, while still seeking Ahmadinejad's removal, is not protesting against Iran's entire ruling clerical system, including Khamenei, said Karroubi's son, Hossein.

-- Associated Press

SRI LANKA

Two former allies battle for top job

The two architects of Sri Lanka's civil war victory will face off in a hard-fought election Tuesday to determine who will lead their troubled country's struggle to recover from the devastating quarter-century conflict.

The main candidates, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and former army chief Sarath Fonseka, were close partners in the campaign to defeat the Tamil Tiger rebels. But a bitter falling out that drove Fonseka to the opposition has turned an expected easy reelection victory for Rajapaksa into a tight political contest.

Whoever wins control of the island off the southern coast of India will inherit a country still divided by the ethnic conflict and mired in economic malaise.

-- Associated Press

NORTHERN IRELAND

Peace pact brokered by U.S. is in danger

The British and Irish governments launched a mission Monday to save Northern Ireland's unraveling administration, a Catholic-Protestant coalition that was meant to forge a lasting era of nonviolent compromise.

The British and Irish prime ministers, Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen, arrived together at Hillsborough Castle, outside Belfast, and vowed to do what they could to persuade local leaders not to pull the plug on power-sharing. Both leaders planned to talk late into the night and to maintain the push Tuesday.

At stake is the core of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday accord of 1998: a cross-community government for Northern Ireland drawn equally from the British Protestant majority and Irish Catholic minority.

The major Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, is warning that it will withdraw from the 2 1/2 -year-old coalition -- triggering its collapse -- unless the Protestant side accepts the need to transfer control of Northern Ireland's justice system from Britain to local hands. Britain and Ireland both back the transfer.

Sinn Fein formally accepted the authority of the Northern Ireland police as part of the deal, ending decades of support for Irish Republican Army attacks on the security forces.

-- Associated Press

FRANCE

Panel to recommend partial ban on veils

A French parliamentary panel will recommend a ban on face-covering Muslim veils in public areas from hospitals to schools but will stop short of pressing for the garb to be outlawed in the street, the panel's president says.

The 32-member panel's report, due Tuesday, will culminate a six-month inquiry into the wearing of all-encompassing veils that began after President Nicolas Sarkozy said in June that they are "not welcome" on French territory.

André Gerin, a Communist lawmaker who heads the multiparty panel, said the report contains a "multitude of proposals" to ban such garb in public places such as schools and hospitals but not private buildings or on the street. He said the proposals would cover "domains that concern everyday society," a phrase that would seem to include public transportation, although he did not mention that specifically.

Critics of the veils call them a gateway to extremism, an insult to gender equality and an offense to France's secular system. A 2004 law bans Muslim head scarves from classrooms. Muslim religious leaders have warned that a ban on face-covering attire in the streets could stigmatize Muslims and drive some to extremism.

-- Associated Press

Protests in Venezuela: Police used tear gas to disperse thousands of students who marched in Venezuelan cities to protest the government's suspension of a TV station opposed to President Hugo Chávez. Venezuelan cable providers stopped showing RCTV Internacional on Sunday.

-- From news services