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(Continued from page 24)
Iran's leader rebukes US concerns as voting begins for new president
• TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's top leader gave a salty rebuke Friday to U.S. questions over the openness of the presidential contest in the Islamic Republic, telling Washington "the hell with you" after casting his ballot in a race widely criticized in the West as rigged in favor of Tehran's ruling system.
• The vote -- bringing an end to the eight-year era of the combative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- has taken unexpected turns in the past days as reform-minded Iranians surged behind the lone moderate left on the six-candidate ballot.
• A victory by former nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani would be seen as a small setback for Iran's Islamic establishment, but not the type of overwhelming challenge posed four years ago by the reformist Green Movement, which was brutally crushed after mass protests claiming Ahmadinejad's 2009 re-election was the result of systematic fraud in the vote counting.
• If no candidate wins an outright majority, a runoff pitting the two top finishers would take place June 21, so even a strong showing by Rowhani in Friday's voting could be overturned.
• Rowhani's backers, such as former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- who was blocked from running by Iran's ruling system -- have urged reformists and others to cast ballots and abandon plans to boycott the election in protest over years of arrests and pressure.
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Turkish protests enter crucial stage after government promises halt to square construction
• ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Activists leading a sit-in in a coveted Istanbul park on Friday were considering a promise made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in talks with activists overnight to let courts -- and a potential referendum -- decide about a park redevelopment project that has sparked Turkey's biggest protests in decades.
• In last-ditch negotiations after Erdogan issued a "final warning" to protesters, his government said it would suspend a controversial development plan for Istanbul's Gezi Park until the courts could rule on its legality. If the courts rule in government's favor, than a referendum would be held in Istanbul on the development plan.
• If those protesting in Istanbul's Gezi park accept the offer, this could bring to a (Continued on page 26)
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