NORTH AFRICA

EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES ARREST MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD OFFICIALS

Egyptian authorities arrested the fourth-highest official in the powerful Muslim Brotherhood early yesterday, one of 25 members of the outlawed movement picked up in a major crackdown ahead of a referendum on presidential election rules the group opposes.

The secretary-general of the Islamist group and head of its Cairo operations, Mahmoud Ezzat, is the highest-profile Brotherhood arrest since 1996, a police official said.

Mr. Ezzat and 24 others were picked up in dawn sweeps of several provinces, police and Brotherhood officials said. Brotherhood deputy leader Mohammed Habib confirmed Mr. Ezzat’s arrest. Three of the others also held senior positions within the banned group. Prosecutors have begun questioning the detainees on charges of membership in – or leadership of – a banned group and organizing demonstrations without permission from the government.

The Egyptian regime “is arresting the leading figures who are capable of moving the people in the street to boycott the referendum. Arrests, at this time, affect the people’s stance,” the editor of the group’s Web site, Abdel-Galil el-Sharnoubi, said.

Wednesday’s referendum allows Egyptians to approve or reject changes to the constitution that will allow the nation’s first multiparty presidential elections in September. Opponents of President Mubarak, including the Brotherhood, have urged a boycott of the referendum, saying the changes will provide little more than window dressing to the current yes-no, one-candidate system.

– Associated Press

PERSIAN GULF

IRANIAN HARD-LINERS REJECT REFORMIST CANDIDATES

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s hard-line Guardian Council has rejected all reformists who registered to run in presidential elections, approving only six out of the 1,010 hopefuls, state television reported yesterday.

The approved candidates for the June 17 vote included a powerful former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, seen as a front-runner in the race. The others were former police chief Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, former radio and television chief Ali Larijani, Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former parliamentary speaker, Mehdi Karroubi, and former head of the elite Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezaei. A former culture minister, Mostafa Moin, who was the sole candidate of Iran’s largest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, was among those disqualified.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS SUFFER STINGING STATE ELECTION LOSS

BERLIN – Chancellor Schroeder’s party called yesterday for national elections to be moved forward a year to this fall after it suffered a stinging electoral defeat in Germany’s most populous state, which the party had governed for almost four decades.

Mr. Schroeder’s Social Democrats won just 37% support yesterday in voting for North Rhine-Westphalia’s legislature, less than the 45% received by the conservative Christian Democrats, according to projections based on exit polls by ARD and ZDF television stations.

The center-left Social Democrats had run North Rhine-Westphalia, a western region of 18 million people that includes the industrial Ruhr Valley, since 1966. But a rise in unemployment and discontent over the chancellor’s efforts to trim the welfare state tested voters’ patience in the party’s traditional heartland.

“Unfortunately, there is no reason this evening for the Social Democrats to celebrate,” party chairman Franz Muentefering said in Berlin. He told ZDF television that he and Mr. Schroeder would propose to party members that national elections, which were expected in the second half of 2006, be advanced by a year.

Besides the two main parties, the Greens, the Social Democrats’ partner in government, and the conservatives’ allies, the Free Democrats, each received 6%, according to ARD.

Christian Democratic leader Angela Merkel was jubilant at yesterday’s win. “The voters have given the Christian Democratic Union a sensational result today,” a beaming Ms. Merkel told reporters.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

NORTH KOREA CONFIRMS MEETING WITH AMERICANS

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea yesterday confirmed that it had met with American officials this month, implying that its return to six-party talks on its nuclear program depended on “the U.S. side’s attitude.”

American officials said last week the two sides had met on May 13 in New York, characterizing the discussions as “working-level contacts.”

The cryptic statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang would continue to “closely watch the U.S. side’s attitude and will deliver its position when the time comes.” The statement was carried by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The meeting, reportedly at the North Korean representative office at the United Nations, came as concerns mount that the reclusive regime is moving toward extracting weapons-grade plutonium and could be preparing for a nuclear test.

American, China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia are trying to persuade North Korea to return to six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons programs. The talks have been stalled since June.

– Associated Press