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Moscow is against imposing sanctions on Iran over the alleged crackdown on protests following the country’s controversial presidential elections, a spokesman for the Russia Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

“We believe that sanctions against Iran over its internal political problems would be unlawful and counter-productive,” Andrei Nesterenko told a regular press conference.

Such a move would provoke unwelcome events in the country and the region, the spokesman said, adding that all disputes should be addressed through legal means.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said earlier that the upcoming meeting of the Group of Eight leaders in central Italy would discuss possible sanctions against Iran for its crackdown on election protests.

According to official data, incumbent Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 62.63 percent of

the total ballots in the June 12 presidential elections.

Ahmadinejad’s main rival Mir Hossein Mousavi, however, claimed the elections were marred by numerous irregularities, triggering massive protest rallies by his supporters.

Iran’s Guardian Council, the top legislative body, has rejected any annulment of the elections since it found “no major irregularities.”

Prolonged drought and a heat wave continued to plague north China Wednesday while at least 10 central and southern provinces are on flood alarm.

In Beijing temperatures have hovered around 35 degrees Celsius for nearly 10 days, and there is still no sign of a drop of temperature. The weather bureau has forecast no showers until Saturday.

Beijing has reported the hottest June in nearly four decades, with the maximum temperature reading 39.6 degrees Celsius last Wednesday. Beijing’s temperature rarely topped 39 degrees in June and the previous record was in 1972, when the maximum June temperature reached 39.2 degrees Celsius.

The city also reported an all-time high of water supplies Tuesday, of 2.78 million cubic meters daily.

The heat has forced many young office workers to join online discussions on how to stay cool, which range from cold water spray to meditation daydreaming one’s atop a snow mountain.

Continuous heat and drought are wreaking more havoc in the country’s largest grassland of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Grain farmer Sun Yuyao in Chifeng is fighting locusts, which threaten to eat away his five-hectare cropland.

“Every step you take, you scare away about 20 locusts,” said Sun. “These small, soil-colored insects are hardly detectable unless they are flying.”

The local government has tried casting nets to trap and kill the locusts and burning them, and has even sent chickens to the cropland to eat them, but the number of locusts is increasing, said Sun.

By the end of June, locusts were plaguing half of Inner Mongolia, putting 3.7 million hectares of grassland and 1.45 million hectares of cropland at risk, about 20 percent of the region’s arable land.

“This is because continued drought has killed some of the grass that feeds locusts,” said Liu Jiaxiang, a forestry official.

In the worst areas, he said helicopters had to be used to spray pesticide. “It’s certainly harmful to the environment, but we have to kill the locusts now to avoid further damage.”

A drought was reported in the northwestern Gansu Province Tuesday, with 230,000 people short of water.

In contrast to the thirst in the north, at least 10 central and southern provinces are on flood alarms Wednesday.

Parts of Hubei Province have been hit by the worst rainstorm in100 years, with daily rainfall reaching 313 mm in Hefeng County alone. Nearly 10,000 residents were evacuated when a dam burst Tuesday, the local government said.

Heavy rain began to hit the central province Sunday and has flooded 45 counties in 12 cities as of 10 am Wednesday. Five people were confirmed dead and one was reported missing.

Rainstorms have flooded streets and swollen lakes and rivers in Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu Guizhou and Yunnan provinces and the Chongqing and Shanghai municipalities. In Chongqing alone, six people were confirmed dead in the rainstorm and subsequent geological accidents.

Two northeastern provinces were also plagued by extreme weather, with 780 homes and 372,000 hectares of cropland destroyed by heavy rain as of Wednesday. The provincial water resources department said Heilongjiang had 157.1 mm of rainfall in June, nearly twice the average monthly volume.

In another development, hailstones hit the northeastern Liaoning Province early Tuesday afternoon, and gales felled a tree, killing a passing pedicab driver and his junior high-school passenger who was on her way to school.

China’s currency, the yuan, edged up 12 basis points against the U.S. dollars Monday, after China repeated calls for a new international reserve currency last week.

The central parity rate of the yuan, or Renminbi (RMB), was 6.8316 per dollar Monday compared with 6.8328 per dollar the previous trading day, according to China Foreign Exchange Trading System.

The currency is allowed to float on the interbank market within a 0.5-percent band, which is set daily by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s central bank.

The PBOC released its annual financial stability report on Friday and renewed its call for the creation of a super-sovereign currency to replace the U.S. dollar.

The decline of the dollar was tempered after Richard Fisher, president of Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said Friday the dollar would not be supplanted as the world’s leading currency.

The international community has expressed concern over Sunday’s military coup in Honduras that ousted President Manuel Zelaya and forced him to go in exile in Costa Rica.

Zelaya was detained by soldiers and then flown to Costa Rica on Sunday, shortly before a disputed referendum for constitutional change was set to start. The constitutional change is expected to allow Zelaya to run for another term.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is deeply concerned about the latest development in Honduras, and calls on all Hondurans to make efforts to peacefully resolve their differences, a UN statement said here on Sunday.

The statement issued by Ban’s spokesperson said the secretary-general “expresses his strong support for the country’s democratic institutions and condemns the arrest today of the constitutional president of the Republic.”

The President of the UN General Assembly Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann “firmly and categorically condemns” the coup in Honduras in a statement, saying it has broken the constitutional order of the Latin American country.

The Organization of American States (OAS) condemned the coup and called for the immediate reinstallation of Zelaya during an extraordinary session on Sunday.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza described the event as “a serious upset to the continent’s democratic process.”

The Group of Rio, which include most of Latin America and the Caribbean, strongly condemned the military coup and urged Zelaya’s reinstatement.

The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) also condemned the coup and called an extraordinary meeting in Nicaragua to discuss the political situation in Honduras.

The European Union Sunday condemned the arrest of Zelaya by the army and called for a return to the constitutional order in the Central American state.

In a statement, the EU foreign ministers urged “the urgent release of the president and a swift return to constitutional normality.”

U.S. President Barack Obama Sunday voiced his deep concern about the detention and expulsion of Zelaya by the country’s army troops. He called on all sides in Honduras to respect democratic norms and the rule of law, and that “any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also issued a statement saying the action against Zelaya “violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and should be condemned by all.”

Brazil, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Guatemala, Paraguay, Uruguay, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, and Panama also expressed their condemns or concerns to the coup.

A senior leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) says China values its relationship with Jordan and wants to keep its ties with the Mideast nation at a high level.

“We would like to work with Jordan to maintain high-level visits, carry out the consensus reached between leaders, advance all-round substantive cooperation and boost the cooperation featuring equality, mutual benefit and common prosperity,” He Guoqiang said Wednesday during a meeting with Prince Ali bin al Hussein.

He, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, said China-Jordan relations have made continued progress since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1977, particularly since King Abdullah II ascended the throne in 1999.

In particular, China has become Jordan’s second largest trading partner, He said. Chinese official statistics showed that the bilateral trade volume hit about 1.92 billion U.S. dollars in 2008.

Prince Ali, who serves as Jordan’s acting king while his brother Abdullah II is on an overseas mission, asked He to convey his and his brother’s cordial greetings to President Hu Jintao.

Prince Ali recalled a football match that a Jordanian team played against a Japanese squad in China. Prince Ali said the way that the Chinese audience cheered for Jordan showed a strong friendship between the two peoples.

Prince Ali said he and King Abdullah II are satisfied with bilateral cooperation in various fields. The prince hoped He’s visit would promote joint efforts in politics, economy, trade, tourism and sports.

The prince said China plays a positive, crucial role in the Middle East peace process, and Jordan and other Middle East nations regard the country as an impartial and friendly nation.

He left Amman Wednesday afternoon for the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, the last stop of his tour.

The top US general in Afghanistan will soon formally order US and NATO forces to break away from fights with militants hiding in Afghan houses so the battles do not kill civilians, a US official said Monday.

Civilian casualties are a huge source of friction between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the United States. The UN has reported that US, NATO and Afghan forces killed 829 civilians in the Afghan war last year.

General Stanley McChrystal, who took command of international forces in Afghanistan this month, has said his measure of effectiveness will be the “number of Afghans shielded from violence”, and not the number of militants killed.

McChrystal will issue orders within days saying troops may attack insurgents hiding in Afghan houses if the US or NATO forces are in imminent danger and must return fire, said US military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith.

“But if there is a compound they’re taking fire from and they can remove themselves from the area safely, without any undue danger to the forces, then that’s the option they should take,” Smith said. “Because in these compounds we know there are often civilians kept captive by the Taliban.”

McChrystal’s predecessor, General David McKiernan, issued rules last fall that told commanders to set conditions “to minimize the need to resort to deadly force.”

But McChrystal’s orders will be more precise and have stronger language ordering forces to break off from battles, Smith said.

In the most recent civilian deaths case, a May 4-5 battle between US and Afghan forces and militants in western Farah province killed dozens of civilians. A US report last week said US forces killed an estimated 26 civilians. However, Karzai’s government says 140 were killed, while an Afghan human rights group says the number is about 100.

Suicide bomber kills 7

In the latest violence, a suicide bomber on a motorbike killed seven civilians Monday when he drove into the center of an eastern Afghan city and set off explosives.

It was unclear who the bomber was targeting when he detonated a bomb on his motorbike in front of Khost city’s electric power headquarters and then explosives on his body a few minutes later, said Kuchi Naseri, a spokesman for the governor of Khost province. The Interior Ministry said seven people were killed.

There were no military or police nearby, Naseri said, but added the later blast may have been planned to hit police or officials rushing to the scene. Another 30 people in the area were wounded, he said.

In southern Kandahar province, meanwhile, another suicide bomber killed three Afghan soldiers in an attack on a convoy of troops inspecting a highway bridge for explosives. The attacker drove a car into the convoy and it exploded, said Zadi district Police Chief Niaz Mohammad Serhadi.

Serhadi said two civilians were also wounded in the blast, along with five other soldiers.

In eastern Nangarhar province, an explosion at a weapons cache killed a 6-year-old boy and wounded 20 others, police said.

It was unclear what sparked the chain reaction of explosions in caves used to store weapons and other material collected from insurgents on the outskirts of Jalalabad city, said Nangarhar province police spokesman Ghafor Khan.

Two soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed as they came under indirect fire targeting the U.S. forces main base in Afghanistan, a press release of the alliance issued Sunday said.

“Two International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service members were killed and six other personnel were wounded in an indirect fire attack on Bagram Air Field this morning,” the press release added.

“On behalf of ISAF, I share our grief and extend our support to the loved ones of these service members,” said Brigadier-General Richard Blanchette, ISAF Spokesperson, the press release further said.

The wounded service members were transported to a medical facility on Bagram Air Field for immediate medical treatment, where they are receiving expert medical care, the press release added.

Bagram, 50 km north of Afghan capital Kabul, has been serving as the headquarters of U.S.-led forces in the post-Taliban central Asian state since overthrowing Taliban regime in late 2001.

Conflicts and violence have claimed 146 international troops so far this year in the post-Taliban country.

After a week of mixed fortunes for State-owned firms involved in major international acquisitions, industry analysts have warned the nation’s CEOs will have to shrug off their “China Inc” tag before they can make any significant expansion into the West.

Bosses at China Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co were celebrating on June 11 when shareholders at OZ Minerals, a major international mining firm based in Australia, voted overwhelmingly in favor of accepting a 1.386-billion U.S. dollars buyout offer.

But it did little to erase the memory of Chinalco’s failure to gain an improved stake in mining giant Rio Tinto just days earlier.

If successful, it would have been China’s largest foreign investment. Chinalco would have paid $12.3 billion for stakes in debt-saddled Rio’s key iron ore, copper and aluminum assets, and $7.2 billion for convertible notes that would double its equity stake in Rio to 18 percent, Reuters reported.

The offer was opposed by the Rio Tinto shareholders, who were worried China, Rio’s biggest customer, would gain influence over pricing of key commodities like iron ore. In the end, Rio Tinto, which has head offices in London and Melbourne, snubbed the $19.5-billion offer and pumped for a joint venture with former rivals BHP Billiton.

The failed bid raised serious questions over the challenges Chinese enterprises face when attempting expansions overseas, say experts, especially as they are often perceived as government vehicles.

“There will always be political pressures on big business investing overseas,” said Dr Dylan Sutherland, a scholar in contemporary Chinese studies at Nottingham University in England. “Chinese enterprises have to accept, being State-run companies, any offer they make will need to be very attractive.

“How to break these ‘China Inc’ perceptions? There is simply no easy way to mitigate these risks, other than perhaps being more upfront about them.

“Constantly refuting links with the State does not necessarily help, in fact it only hinders the process, creating an impression of dishonesty in the eyes of many observers.”

A statement from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Tuesday the alliance between Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton had a “strong monopolistic color”, and that Chinese firms would be watching closely to find ways to cope with it.

China imported 440 million tons of iron ore last year, half of the world’s total, which means any change to the market, albeit slight, would have a knock-on effect for the nation’s steel manufacturers.

“Anti-monopoly laws in China should apply to the proposed deal,” said Chen Yanhai, head of the raw material department of the MIIT at an industry meeting in Anshan, Liaoning province, recently.

If the joint venture proves to be monopolistic, “we will seek new policies and regulations to allow Chinese companies to have a bigger say in iron ore pricing”, said Chen, without elaborating on how this would be achieved.

Ministry of Commerce spokesman Yao Jian backed the comments on Monday, adding if the revenue from the Rio Tinto-BHP Billiton deal reached “a certain amount,” China’s anti-monopoly law would come into play.

The rules stipulate a company must get approval from the central government before consolidation if its global revenue exceeds 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) and its revenue in China exceeds 2 billion yuan.

Many industry analysts, when talking about the failed Chinalco deal, have referred to a similar scenario in 2005, when political obstacles blocked China National Offshore Oil Company’s (CNOOC) $18.5-billion attempt to buy Unocal, at the time a major petroleum enterprise based in the United States.

After a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, the bid was referred to then-president George W Bush on the grounds it had implications to national security.

CNOOC withdrew its offer shortly after, while Unocal was instead merged with the Chevron Corp later that year.

“The Chinalco debacle followed the same pattern as the aborted CNOOC-Unocal deal four years ago,” said Yao Shujie, an economics professor who heads the school of contemporary Chinese studies at Nottingham University. “It not only marked the collapse of a strategic partnership between two independent transnational corporations, but also reflected the competition and compatibility between Western powers and a rapidly growing China in politics, culture and economy.”

The breakdown of the Chinalco-Rio Tinto deal has been met with anger and disappointment in China, with many of the country’s experts blaming a prejudice against State-owned companies.

However, Yao argued that a notable factor was the lack of experience in foreign investment among many of China’s business leaders. He said: “The speed of global expansion has given Chinese companies little practice of the pitiless realities of Western-style acquisitions.”

Xiong Weiping, chairman of Chinalco, said his firm worked hard to respond constructively and engage with Rio Tinto to amend the transaction terms announced four months ago, but the result was completely out of its control.

But Yao disagreed and blamed the company’s management for their insufficient understanding of the concerns of big Western resource companies, as well as the possibility of a stock price resurgence and its consequences.

“Chinalco should have pressed its negotiating advantage harder and not given Rio time to seek alternatives,” he said. “Besides, a 1-percent break fee for a $19.5-billion deal makes breach of contract too easy.”

Yao’s colleague in England, Dr Sutherland, added: “The complicated deal Chinalco proposed created a long gestation period and opened up possibilities for market corrections and greater political scrutiny.

“The major lesson is to keep trying. The markets moved against Chinalco. It may have opted for a simpler equity deal and acted faster, but it is not clear then this would have given it exactly what it wanted.”

In the deal with OZ Minerals, a last-minute decision by Minmetals to sweeten its offer with an extra $180 million proved decisive in winning over the Australian miner’s shareholders. It also helped Minmetals see off two rival bidders.

Minmetals was given the green light to take over OZ Minerals with a revised offer in April. The Australian government rejected a previous bid over national security concerns, while the improved terms simply excluded a flagship mine located near a military installation.

China began to encourage domestic enterprises to invest abroad in 2000. Figures from the Ministry of Commerce last year showed direct outbound investment by Chinese firms had reached $52.1 billion, up 96.7 percent year-on-year.

In April, the government launched a guidebook to help domestic companies invest overseas and, in May, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange unveiled a draft regulation aiming to simplify examination and approval procedures for investing abroad to solicit public opinion.

However, Yao noted: “But China should realize that even with the support of the State banking sector, even with the damage the global financial crisis has inflicted on Western business, China cannot expect to implement its investment strategy unopposed.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delayed a visit to Russia on Monday, a source at the Iranian embassy in Moscow told Reuters, amid unrest over his contested win in Friday’s presidential election.

“The president will definitely not come today,” said the official, who asked not to be named. The source would not say why the visit was delayed but added that Ahmadinejad would arrive on Tuesday.

Supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi postponed plans to hold a protest rally in Tehran on Monday after the Interior Ministry declared it would be illegal.

Ahmadinejad was supposed to arrive on Monday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. Iran has observer status at the SCO, which groups Russia, China and four Central Asian states.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was scheduled to meet Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the summit to discuss bilateral ties and Iran’s nuclear program, a Kremlin source said. Russia has supplied fuel to Iran for a civilian nuclear reactor.

Chinese President Hu Jintao also had a meeting scheduled with Iran’s president in Yekaterinburg, a Chinese official said.

Iranian state television said Ahmadinejad was due to fly to Russia later on Monday, a day after holding a triumphant rally attended by tens of thousands of people.

Besides Russia and China, the SCO groups the ex-Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. In addition to Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan and India have observer status. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been invited as a guest.

Iran’s president, who helps rule the world’s fifth-largest oil producer, has made a tradition of stealing the limelight at major conferences, including an SCO meeting in Shanghai in 2006 that was dominated by news about Tehran’s nuclear program.

The leaders of India and Pakistan are also likely to meet in Yekaterinburg, their first such meeting since last November’s attack on Mumbai.

NUCLEAR-ARMED POWERS

A meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari could help break the ice between the two nuclear-armed powers.

“We consider that this organization is an important platform in the sense of strengthening trust, regional security and assistance in economic cooperation,” Zardari told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

He said nothing about a possible meeting with India’s leader in the interview and it was unclear whether they would hold a bilateral discussion or simply take part in the wider meeting.

SCO leaders meet for dinner with Medvedev on Monday and some observer nations will also attend. On Tuesday, a fuller meeting of SCO leaders and observer countries will take place.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Afghanistan are likely to be top themes at the SCO meeting, according to Russian officials.

The DPRK has raised tension in the past few months by test-firing missiles, restarting a plant to produce weapons-grade plutonium and holding a nuclear test on May 25.

On Afghanistan, Russia backed a US-led military operation launched in 2001 to remove the country’s Taliban rulers.

Moscow has since criticized Washington for its conduct in Afghanistan and Russian ally Kyrgyzstan has ordered the United States to leave an air base Washington was renting to supply troops in Afghanistan.

“We welcome the increasingly transparent US policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the Kremlin’s top foreign policy adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, told reporters on Sunday. “The space for cooperation with the West on Afghanistan can be broader.”

Medvedev is scheduled to have a separate meeting with Afghanistan’s Karzai and Pakistan’s Zardari.

Brazil, Russia, India and China, known as the BRIC group, will hold a separate summit on Tuesday after the SCO meeting.

Spanish striker Fernando Torres on Sunday scored a hat-trick to hand Spain a 5-0 triumph over New Zealand in group match of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup.

The Kiwis did not organize effective launch but had to stay in their own half in a sharp contrast to the performance of the Spain who raced into a 3-0 lead through a six-minute treble by Torres in less than 20 minutes in the stadium located in the central South African city of Rustenburg.

Forward Torres kicked the ball into the top right corner after taking a pass from David Villa.

Eight minutes later, Albert Riera and Villa hitthe byline and handed out an easy goal for Torres. A header in the 17th minute finished the hat-trick for the Liverpool striker.

Cesc Fabregas and David Villa finished the rout against the Oceania champions with two more goals.

The group match came after Iraq held South Africa 0-0 in the curtain-raiser of the Conferations Cup.

Spain are favorites in the four teams of Group A, leaving the hosts South Africa, Iraq and New Zealand to compete for the other slot in the semifinals.