Iran

Council denies reports of female candidates

Iran’s hard-line leadership ruled out allowing women to run for president in June elections, denying reports in the state-run media Saturday that it had decided to allow female candidates for the first time.

It was not clear whether the denial meant the hard-line Guardian Council was reversing itself or whether the earlier announcement was a mistake.

The June 17 election is a major opportunity for hard-liners to take back the presidency, because reformist incumbent Mohammad Khatami is barred from running for a third consecutive term in the post.

Ukraine

Yushchenko prepares to take presidential oath

Viktor Yushchenko, to be sworn in as president today, has pledged to steer Ukraine on a new course, fighting corruption and bringing the former Soviet republic closer to the European Union and NATO while maintaining good relations with Russia.

But the reformer, who won a court-ordered election spurred by weeks of protests against his earlier defeat in a fraud-plagued election, could face substantial opposition in the country’s largely Russian-speaking east, stronghold of his election foe Viktor Yanukovych.

Many in the east fear a rise of Ukrainian nationalism under Yushchenko that could result in discrimination against them. On Saturday, Yushchenko participated in a traditional Ukrainian Cossack ceremony that could heighten those concerns.

Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived Saturday night.

Iraq

Official won’t confirm terror chief in custody

Iraq’s interior minister on Saturday refused to comment on rumors that the top terror leader in the country had been taken into custody.

“I wouldn’t like to comment for the time being,” Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said when asked about rumors that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been arrested. “Let’s see. Maybe in the next few days we will make a comment about it.”

The rumors followed an interview aired earlier this month on an Arab television station in which a Saudi man arrested for a deadly truck bombing claimed that he heard from other insurgents that al-Zarqawi had been arrested by Iraqi police in Fallujah but released because authorities didn’t recognize him.

Rome

Pope reaffirms Catholic opposition to condoms

After several days of unusual public debate among senior figures in the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II on Saturday reaffirmed church teaching that urges abstinence and marital fidelity to stop the spread of AIDS and forbids condoms.

His statement followed a week in which a high official of Spain’s Bishops Conference said there was “a place” for condoms in AIDS prevention, but then was overruled by the full Bishops Conference, and other leaders weighed in to suggest publicly that a policy change might be appropriate.

In recent days, the pope also has stressed the role of Catholic health workers in tending to people with AIDS.

The church opposes the use of condoms except in rare circumstances, on grounds that they are a form of birth control and that to open the lid on their use would foster immorality. The Vatican has depicted contraception as part of an attack on the “culture of life” because it blocks the creation of children.