IRAN : SURPRISING ELECTION RUN-OFF"
All candidates had failed to garner the needed 50% of votes required to avoid a run-off.", al-Jazeera reported.
All the predictions made about the name of the new Iranian president were wrong since the result of Friday's poll was a surprising run-off.
Iranian politicians and media outlets have expressed the idea that the result reflects the fact that Iran is a democratic country,
"Iran is democratic. What is happening in Iran proves it."
"This run-off is proof that we don’t tamper with election results, we don't suppress the voice of the people, and we don’t bow to foreign interests," said a government agent speaking in codition of anonimity.
"Given these results,
it is hard to predict who will emerge as the winner in the second round next week," a Tehran Times editor told al-Jazeera adding that,
"All the polls and predictions must have been wrong."
al-Jazeera
Il Romanaccio at 4:05 PM
IRAN : POLLS OPEN TO ELECT THE NEW PRESIDENTIranian President Mohammad Khatami has spent eight years in trying to change his country's theocratic government. Polls are now open for the people to vote their future president who is thought to be the Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relative moderate candidate.
Rafsanjani has already served as Iranian president twice in the past but in this case, he is presenting himslef as the man who can restore old ties with US government, moreover he is willing to calm down the international pressure on Iran's nuclear program by re-entering a better welcomed energetic plan.
Even if
G.W. Bush thinks that there is not the shadow of democracy in the Iranian election,
"Iran's rulers denied more than a thousand people who put themselves forward as candidates, including popular reformers and women who have done so much for the cause of freedom and democracy in Iran," said the American president,
Hamid Reza Assefi, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, did not agree with Mr. Bush,
[Bush's]"declarations are based on hostility and animosity" [towards Iran] and [Washington] "should hardly be worrying about democracy because its main allies are dictatorships," said Assefi.
al-Jazeera
Il Romanaccio at 11:52 AM
IRAQ : FIVE US MARINES KILLLED BY A BOMBThe deadly al-Anbar province in Iraq claimed the
life of another five US marine, killed by a roadside bomb close to the town of Ramadi. Also five Iraqi soldiers were wounded and brought to the closest hospital.
"The five [Iraqi] soldiers have been taken to a Baghdad hospital," said an Iraqi Interior Minister source.
Another bomb exploded during launch time in a busy restaurant of an Iraqi military base, killing 23 soldiers and wounding 28.
Four people were killed and 29 wounded when a bomb exploded close to the al-Kubaisi market in the Za'faraniya area, in southeastern Baghdad.
al-JazeeraCNN
Il Romanaccio at 1:14 PM
KURDISTAN : BARZANI IS THE NEW IRAQI KURDISTAN PRESIDENTMassoud Barzani, a former rebel leader and the son of the nationalist hero Mullah Mustafa Barzani, is the
first president of Iraqi Kurdistan,
"I promise to safeguard the accomplishments of Kurdistan and to carry out my duties faithfully," he told the National Parliament after the election.
"I will do my best to strengthen national unity and brotherhood between Kurds and Arabs... The national unity of Kurdistan is a national unity for Iraq," said Barzani.
David Satterfield, US assistant for Near Eastern affairs, seemed satisfied about the new president,
"Iraqi Kurdistan has now embarked on Iraq's first real experience of democracy with elections and a new government,"
"The people of this region in particular have endured countless struggles, countless tragedies, and have lost successive generations of their sons in the struggle to secure basic rights."
"A progressive, prosperous Kurdistan will help build a democratic, unified and prosperous Iraq," said Satterfield.
al-Jazeera
Il Romanaccio at 12:27 PM
IRAQ : 28 PEOPLE KILLED BY TWO BOMBSTwo separate bomb attacks hit the north of Baghdad and a bank in Kirkuk, killing at least 28 people.
The first bomb exploded in Baghdad killing ten Iraqis including two children.
A policeman was reported to say,
"Two policemen and four civilians, including two children below the age of 10, were killed and four civilians were wounded when the car exploded as a police patrol passed by."
The other attack took place in
Kirkuk and killed 18 people wounding another 53.
In this case the bomb was placed close to a line of people waiting in front of the Rafidayn Bank in downtown Kirkuk.
al-Jazeera
Il Romanaccio at 12:22 PM
AFGHANISTAN : US CONVOY TARGETED BY TALIBANFive American citizens died and at least four US soldiers were injured when a bomb blast hit a US convoy in the nearbies of Kandahar. Taliban have apparently claimed responsibility for the attack.
"The initial report we have indicates an improvised explosive device hit a coalition convoy in Kandahar today," said Lieutenant Cindy Moore.
Earlier in the morning an eye witness, speaking in conditions of anonimity, said that
a taxi driven by a suicide bomber exploded in the middle of another US convoy,
"The person in the car that carried out the act has been torn into pieces. The car approached the American convoy of about 20 vehicles," said the eye witness.
al-Jazeera
Il Romanaccio at 1:15 PM
LEBANON : UN INSPECTORS TO COME BACKIn order to ensure that the Syrian forces have left Lebanon, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is about to send another group of inspecstors in the country.
A previuos investigation carried on by the UN on May 23, reported the complete withdrawn of all the Syrian troops.
The new task force of inspectors will have to report wether the
UN resolution number 1559, demanding for a complete withdrawal of the Syrian army from the Lebanon sole, was fully accomplished or not.
al-Jazeera
Il Romanaccio at 1:24 PM
