Lahore, Mar 17: Former cricketer and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan has said the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) was against basic human rights and would be challenged in court.

A private TV channel quoted Khan as saying that incidents like May 12 and the Lal Masjid operation would also be challenged in court.

He said Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had been reinstated through the people’s power and would stand by the people.

Tehran - Iranian former president Mohammad Khatami quit the presidential race on Monday night to support former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi in the June 12 election.

The two candidates had similar platforms, and observers believed they could split the moderate vote to the advantage of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose ultra-conservative faction has named him as its sole candidate.

In a statement carried by his website, Yaari News, Khatami said he withdrew his candidacy "as a moral obligation for avoiding a split in the votes."

Tehran  - Iranian former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi has been away from the political scene for two decades, but now the pragmatic technocrat is back to challenge Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 presidential election.

Former president Mohammad Khatami threw his support behind Moussavi on Monday after quitting the race to avoid splitting the vote between two candidates with similar platforms.

Moussavi, born in 1941 in Khameneh, north-eastern Iran, started his political career as foreign minister in 1980, the same year that the Iran-Iraq war broke out.

Tehran  - Iranian former president Mohammad Khatami quit the presidential race on Monday night to support former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi in the June 12 election.

The two candidates had similar platforms, and observers believed they could split the moderate vote to the advantage of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose ultra-conservative faction has named him as its sole candidate.

In a statement carried by his website Yaari News, Khatami said he withdrew his candidacy "as a moral obligation for avoiding a split in the votes."

Tehran

Podgorica, Montenegro - Montenegro's political opposition on Monday accused Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of "meddling" in the Balkan country's current election campaign.

Nebojsa Medojevic, head of the Movement for Change, made the statement in reaction to Berlusconi's one-day visit with Montenegran Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic in Podgorica.

In the meeting, the Italian leader had agreed to new Italian investment in the Montenegro's energy and tourism sectors, local media reported.