Ayatollah Khatami has vowed to contest the disqualifications saying there would be a harsh reaction if legal

Ayatollah Khatami has vowed to contest the disqualifications, saying there would be a “harsh reaction” if legal means failed to overturn them.The disqualified legislators include Mohammad Reza Khatami, the younger brother of the president and leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, and Behzad Nabavi – both deputy speakers of parliament.Also among them are Elaheh Koulaee and Fatemeh Haqiqatjou, prominent defenders of women’s rights.. Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, said yesterday he would intervene only once all legal channels are exhausted.Many legislators, including those disqualified, have staged a sit-in inside the parliament building since Sunday, when disqualifications were announced. Hard-liners seek to set up a sham parliament through sham elections,” the statement saidReformists have threatened a boycott of the 20 February elections if disqualifications are not reversed. However, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has pledged to intervene if the crisis is not resolved soon.The Guardian Council, an unelected hardline constitutional watchdog, has barred more 3,000 of the 8,200 candidates – including more than 80 serving parliamentarians – who filed papers to run forthe 290-member parliament. The Golan contains the best vineyards for Israel’s wine industry, and Israel’s only ski resort.¿ An Israeli taxi driver, Ofer Shwartzboim, aged 39, has been arrested for driving a Palestinian suicide bomber to the site of an attack near Tel Aviv last month, the first time a Jew has been accused of assisting a bomber in the past three years of fighting.. Iran’s reformist government has threatened to resign over the move by hardliners to disqualify reformist candidates from next month’s elections. The man charged yesterday with the murder of Anna Lindh, the Swedish Foreign Minister, said that voices in his head, including that of Jesus, told him to do it.
Mijailo Mijailovic, 25, said: “I don’t know, I think it’s Jesus.

That he has chosen me,” according to transcripts of his confessions on 6 and 7 January. Mr Mijailovic, who has a history of mental problems, said the attack on thepolitician on 10 September was a “cry for help”.Prosecutors said that he stabbed Lindh, 46, who was talked of as a future prime minister, 10 times as she was shopping in a Stockholm store. She died the next day.Mr Mijailovic’s lawyer said that he would request a psychiatric assessment of his client. The assessment would take place after the trial, which begins tomorrow.. The EU could be about to gain a place in your kitchen cupboard, at your workplace and on your most intimate items of clothing. Plans are being discussed for products manufactured in Europe to be labelled “made in the EU”.

The idea, promoted by Italy and Greece, may also have attractions for some small countries.But others argue that the labels will confuse, rather than inform, consumers who want more precise information about the origin of products, particularly foodstuffs.The plan would need the backing of a majority of countries and the UK would only consider EU labels if they were placed alongside national markings.Other member states are also wary, and even Italy wants the new label to run alongside its own.Arancha Gonzalez, the spokeswoman for the European Commissioner for trade, Pascal Lamy, said the options include compulsory and voluntary labelling and a system that complements national markings or one that replaces them. “We have not put any preferred option on the table for the time being,” she said.Last year Mr Lamy suggested a “made in the EU” label for European-made textiles and clothes.But John Cridland, the deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said: “British business believes in giving customers what they want. The move would obscure where products have come from at a time when consumers are asking for more information.”. A Moscow court sentenced two men to life in prison yesterday for their involvement in a series of apartment-house bombings that triggered the second war in Chechnya. The verdict was denounced by the Kremlin’s critics as a “show” to cover up the real perpetrators.

One report suggested he will earn £3m.Mr Pollock, whose opening submission is set to last nearly three months, will aim to score points with some highly embarrassing revelations, including details of the repeated warnings by Bank staff that BCCI’s finances were in a mess.One 1982 memo likely to be mentioned in court described BCCI as “on its way to becoming the financial equivalent of the Titanic”. To succeed, it must prove Bank officials not only made mistakes, but also acted dishonestly and recklessly by failing to perform their official duties while knowing that the omissions put depositors’ money at risk.The Bank strenuously denies this and has marshalled three former governors – the recently retired Sir Eddie George, Robin Leigh-Pemberton, now Lord Kingsdown, and Lord Richardson, now 88, governor between 1973 and 1983 – to give evidence.Gordon Pollock, one of the highest-paid QCs in Britain, who is acting for the liquidators, will draw upon 300,000 documents which have been disclosed by the Bank. The Bank is not just being charged with being incompetent for failing to act despite years of warnings about BCCI – it is immune from such cases. Instead Deloitte, through its City law firm Lovells, is levelling the unusual charge of misfeasance in public office. He called for compensation to be paid to the thousands of individuals and local authorities who found their cash wiped away.His demand could now come back to haunt him.