Iran opposition leader's office surrounded by government supporters

Tehran - The office of Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi was surrounded Monday by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, Moussavi's website said. About 40 government supporters on motorbikes gathered in front of Moussavi's office at the School of Arts in Tehran and prevented the former prime minister from leaving, the report said.

The website quoted Moussavi as telling them if they had the mission to hit or kill him, they should do so.

Moussavi is one of four key opposition leaders, along with former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi and former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

The opposition quartet has accused the government of fraud in the June presidential voting and refused to acknowledge Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Moussavi's supporters on Monday staged renewed protests against Ahmadinejad which led to clashes with police and several arrests.

Ahmadinejad and other officials have called on the judiciary to put Moussavi and the opposition leaders on trial for acting against national interests.

More than 80 dissidents, journalists and former officials of the previous reformist government have been sentenced to jail terms of up to 15 years for involvement in post-vote protests, and alleged plans to topple the Islamic establishment.

At least five dissidents have been sentenced to death due to alleged cooperation with rebel and terrorist groups, but have the right to appeal the death verdicts.

Official results of Bolivian election delayed till Tuesday

La Paz - The official results of Bolivia's general election will only be released Tuesday, electoral authorities said. President Evo Morales, 50, has claimed victory and appears set to serve a second five-year term, with the inauguration scheduled for January.

According to exit polls, Morales had 62 per cent of votes in the presidential election compared to 24 per cent for conservative Manfred Reyes Villa, his closest challenger.

Electoral Court president Antonio Costas attributed the delay to "technical problems" and said the results would be available Tuesday at the earliest on the court's website.

Morales' Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) also seemed certain to get majorities in both houses of the National Congress.

When he was elected president in 2005, becoming Bolivia's first indigenous head of state, Morales got 53.7 per cent of votes.

Britain loses 100th soldier of the year in Afghanistan

London - Britain lost its 100th soldier in fighting so far in 2009 in Afghanistan, the defense ministry reported Monday evening. The ministry said the soldier was killed in Helmand province in the south of the country.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed his condolences and said the "entire nation" stood by the families and friends of all 100 soldiers killed so far in 2009, a year which already has been the bloodiest for the military since the 1982 Falklands War.

The latest casualty comes a week after Brown announced that Britain would send an additional 500 soldiers to help fight the Taliban, a pledge which is supported by fewer and fewer Britons.

Britain, with some 10,000 troops, provides the second-biggest contingent in Afghanistan after the United States.

Reformist Tehran daily Hayat'e No closes

Tehran - The reformist Tehran daily, Hayat'e No (New Life), closed down on Monday, Fars news agency reported. The Iranian press watchdog banned the daily "for working outside the regulations" of press law, Fars said without giving further details.

Hayat'e No was one the few reformist dailies still published in Tehran, and was pro opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi. The closure came shortly after Monday's demonstrations by thousands of supporters of Moussavi's Green Movement against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his disputed re-election in June.

The protests led to violent clashes between police and protesters and renewed arrests of Green Movement members.

Reformist dailies in Iran are usually closed under the pretext of their having insulted religious and political figures or fomenting public discord.

Obama lauds Turkey's approach to Kurdish community - Update

Washington - US President Barack Obama Monday praised Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's inclusive policies towards Turkey's minority Kurdish community and expressed condolences on the killing of at least five Turkish soldiers in a terrorist attack earlier in the day. In comments after the two leaders met at the White House, Obama said he had "complimented" Erdogan for the "often very difficult steps" he had taken in reintegrating the Kurdish minority into the democratic and political process.

Obama was referring to the initiative by Erdogan's government to create an anti-discrimination commission and allow political campaigning in languages other than Turkish in an effort to stem the terrorism of Kurdish separatists.

The US president drew parallels to the way in which the Kurdish minority in neighboring Iraq was feeling "effectively represented" within the central government. That feeling helped the Iraqi Kurds to recognize that their interests and prosperity could not be advanced through "any kind of military activity."

The two leaders also discussed Iran's nuclear crisis, and Erdogan said Ankara stood "ready to do whatever we can to ensure a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue in our region."

Turkey was prepared to do whatever it could on the Middle East crisis, Erdogan said, adding that "I do believe that, first and foremost, the United States, too, has important responsibility in trying to achieve global peace."

On the issue of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, Obama said Erdogan had been "courageous" in his efforts to normalize the decades-old resentment and bitterness.

Obama said the overtures by Ankara to Turkey's estimated 12-15 million Kurdish minority reflected recognition that terrorism cannot just be dealt with militarily. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has been fighting Turkish forces since 1982, in a conflict that has cost the lives of an estimated 40,000.

Erdogan noted the need for even closer cooperation with the United States in combating the PKK, recalling US intelligence support since 2007 in Ankara's fight against the separatist group.

"At that time, we had declared the separatist terrorist organization as the common enemy of the United States, Turkey and Iraq, because terrorism is the enemy of all mankind," Erdogan told reporters.

"Wherever a terrorist attack takes place, our reaction is always the same, because terrorism does not have a religion - a homeland," he said.

Erdogan and Obama also likely discussed Obama's newly unveiled strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul has said his country would not be sending any combat troops to Afghanistan, despite the US call for more NATO forces.

Turkey currently has 1,750 soldiers in Afghanistan, providing security for Kabul, but is not engaged in active combat operations.

Obama thanked Erdogan for Turkey's "outstanding contributions to stabilizing Afghanistan."

German smuggled rare animals in his underpants, court told

Wellington - A German who admitted trading in endangered wildlife tried to smuggle 44 rare animals out of New Zealand in his underpants, a court was told, according to news reports on Tuesday. Hans Kurt Kubus, 58, from Bad Munstereifel, Limbach,pleaded guilty in Christchurch District Court Monday to five charges of trading in exploited species and two of hunting absolutely protected wildlife.

Kubus had 24 geckos from five species and 20 skinks of two species hidden in a package in his underwear when he was searched while trying to board a flight at Christchurch airport on Sunday, Department of Conservation prosecutor Mike Bodie told the court.

"The package contained eight separate compartments separating various gecko and skink species," he said. "The defendant had hand-sewn the eight compartments together to form a single compact concealed package. The defendant's luggage also contained a single gecko in a rolled up sock.

"When interviewed, the defendant admitted trading geckos and taking geckos and skinks from the wild without any permit or authority and was subsequently arrested."

Bodie said the street value of each gecko on the black market in Europe was at least 1,000 euros (1,500 dollars), while the value of the skinks was unknown because it was the first time trading in the small lizards had been identified.

"It was also determined that 14 out of 15 adult female geckos and 12 out of 14 female skinks in the defendant's possession were pregnant. Each pregnant animal is likely to give birth to multiple live young in the coming weeks."

Kubus was remanded on bail for sentence on January 25.

Google upgrades search technology

San Francisco - Google unveiled new features for its signature search tools Monday, including an ability to search by sight, a mobile translator and a real-time search of more than 1 billion new social media pages created every day. Google executives showed off the upgrades at an annual company event called Searchology.

The search engine giant said it was working to tie its search service more closely to cellphones. It showed off a new search option called Google Goggles that allows users to submit pictures rather than key words as queries, which would allow for identification of images taken via cellphones.

"It is our goal to be able to identify any image," said Google's vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra. "It represents our earliest efforts in the field of computer vision. You can take a picture of an item, use that picture of whatever you take as the query."

Gundotra said the company has the capability of integrating facial recognition into the technology but was delaying the implementation while it considered the privacy implications.

"For this product, we made the decision not to do facial recognition," Gundotra said. "We still want to work on the issues of user opt-in and control. We have the technology to do the underlying face recognition, but we decided to delay that until safeguards are in place."

Future search results would feature the company's "near me now" technology that will prioritize location-based items, he said.

Gundotra also showed off the search engine's ability to translate a spoken phrase from English to Spanish using a mobile phone. The translator feature will become available early next year and Google will rapidly expand the number of languages it can use, Gundotra said.

"Our goal at Google is nothing less than being able to support all the major languages of the world," he said.

The real time search technology is a product of partnerships announced Monday with Facebook and MySpace. Google already had an agreement with microblogging site Twitter, and said that the new search would be rolled out worldwide in the coming days.