Iran: vote early, and vote often The election is not going to be boycotted by the opposition, and this can only be good news

A young girl holds a photograph of Saeed Jalili, Iran's lead nuclear negotiator and a candidate in the country's presidential election on 14 June. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

However far elections in Iran fail the basic test of being free and fair, they are not, paradoxically foregone conclusions. Last month, as hundreds registered to stand for the presidential election, everyone groaned as the two heavyweights who could have counterbalanced the overarching power of Iran's supreme leader, former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, either refused to run or were disqualified. Countering rumours that he was too old and thus unfit for the presidency, Rafsanjani revealed this week that the guardian council had been swayed in its deliberations by a senior security figure, reinforcing the notion that his exclusion was politically motivated. So much for the predictable.
But now for the opposite. Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, who many saw as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's preferred candidate, has performed terribly, particularly on his special subject – the handling of Iran's nuclear negotiations. It has come under fire from all sides – moderates and conservatives alike. Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric and former chief nuclear negotiator himself said it is great to have the uranium enrichment centrifuges spinning, providing that Iran keeps its economy spinning too. Ali Akbar Velayati, a conservative who advises Khamenei on foreign policy, also laid into Jalili during a television debate, saying that the art of diplomacy was to preserve Iran's nuclear rights, not to see sanctions increase. Jalili's star is falling, but under this system there are still five of the original eight who made it through the guardian council hurdle whom Ayatollah Khamenei would be comfortable with as president.
But that is not all. Iran's beleaguered reformists have thrown their weight behind Rouhani. To avoid splitting the vote , the other reformist candidate, Mohammad Reza Aref, withdrew on Monday in what appeared to be a coordinated plan. In addition, a consensus is now forming within what remains of the green movement, whose leaders are under house arrest, and among prisoners a no-vote or a spoiled vote is a vote for conservatism. They well remember that in 2005 more people did not vote than voted for the regime candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The election is not going to be boycotted by the opposition, and this can only be good news.
Elections are run by the ministry of interior, part of the government dominated by the outgoing president. He has become an opponent of those around Ayatollah Khamenei, although he has not attacked the supreme leader himself. All this points to a more freewheeling event on Friday than anyone could have imagined last month. The current conservative favourite is Tehran's mayor, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. A further runoff vote would favour his side, but anything is still possible.
• This article was amended on 13 June 2013. The original misspelled "foregone" as "forgone".

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Comment is free Iran: an opportunity to be seized This is about more than one man – the way he came to power matters, too

Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, has come across as strongly critical of his country's current trajectory at home and abroad. Photograph: Corbis

Amid the storm clouds thickening and darkening over Syria, there was one shaft of sunlight at the weekend: the election of a moderate cleric as Iran's president. Whether it is because of the west's bungled intervention in Iraq, or simply the law of unintended consequences, Iran's influence has indisputably grown. Today its decisions affect Arab lives from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, from the Turkish border to the Gulf. Of all the options available to the US in trying to roll back this power – punitive sanctions, military confrontation or arming the Gulf states – negotiation is still the most attractive. In Hassan Rouhani, a partner for negotiation may have finally arrived.
This is about more than one man – the way he came to power matters, too. To take one small snapshot, Qom, a city full of clerics, voted for him, not against. To have Qom vote against the five regime candidates left in the race, defying the will of the guardian council who vetted them, sends a powerful signal in its own right. Mr Rouhani's warning that Iran's stand over nuclear fuel must not come at the cost of its economy plainly won the backing of a broad swath of Iranian opinion, transcending conservative and reformist camps. In 2009, Iran's nuclear policy was not centre stage of the election campaign; this weekend it was. This alone should put the ultra-conservative group around the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the defensive.
Mr Rouhani's victory also showed that the reformist camp had learned the lessons of the stolen election in 2009. The two reformist leaders backing him, Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, showed their hand for Mr Rouhani only at the eleventh hour. This took skill. Until then, the regime had no idea who really lay behind his candidacy. Mr Rafsanjani and Mr Khatami did not go for the most outspoken reformist in the race. By persuading Mohammad-Reza Aref to stand down, they showed the reformists could play Iranian politics. Since the crackdown which followed the election of 2009, they have lowered their expectations, deciding that small steps forwards are better than large steps backward.
The character of Iran's new president also matters. Unlike his confrontational predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr Rouhani is a consensus builder. He is a seasoned diplomat who knows the west. Under him, Iran suspended enrichment and allowed international inspectors in. Full suspension of the uranium-spinning centrifuges is unlikely to be repeated, and the west must understand that much power still lies in the hands of Mr Khamenei and Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Mr Rouhani clearly represents an opportunity to unwind Iran's ticking nuclear clock. But the US and its allies must also learn important lessons from years of stalemate. The draconian sanctions need to be reversible: for Mr Rouhani to be able to make concessions, he must be able to go back to his people with tangible economic gains. Iran's sovereignty must be respected, including that which relates to properly monitored civil nuclear power, and it must also be engaged in a growing non-nuclear agenda, principally Syria.
The clearest indication of that came not from the wary G8 leaders assembled yesterday, but from Cairo. President Mohamed Morsi cut diplomatic relations with Damascus, while calling both for Hezbollah to leave Syria and for a no-fly zone. The man who tried and failed to convene a conference including Iran and Saudi Arabia was expressing his frustration with Shia-led attacks on Sunni Muslims. Before Sunni jihadis start flocking into Syria, Iran must realise what is at stake – and back down. Posing as a champion of the Shia is one thing; fighting a war with Sunni Arabs is another – and it is not a fight Iran will win.
Russia cannot be counted as an intermediary on Iran. Vladimir Putin has not got the strategic vision to do that in his current mood. Few other countries have got the clout. Thus it is only America which can engage Iran. If it does so, Barack Obama's prematurely outstretched hand might finally find a recipient.

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The body of a female Big Brother winner becomes public property Being a lapsed Big Brother fan allows you to look at the show from the outside – and wonder about the real price the winners pay. Witness Josie Gibson and her ever-changing body

'The worst thing Josie Gibson could do now is stay happy. Something must change, otherwise we lose interest and her career in bodychange will end': Gibson entering the Big Brother house in June 2010. Photograph: Getty Images

And once more Big Brother rolls into town, with a strangled whimper and the small sad fart of a family pet on its final walk to the vet's. But in the same way that we suddenly understood the earth when we saw it from a distance, all blue and green, it's only now that I've stopped watching Big Brother that it's possible to see the shape of it. Specifically, the effect it has on the celebrities it produces, who went into the house as one thing and came out as quite another.
The last winner of note (the last winner before it slithered to Channel 5) was Bristol sales rep Josie Gibson in 2010, who was popular with viewers in part because she was so beautiful and at ease in her "comfortable size 16" skin. And then she emerged from the Big Brother house, and changed. As a female Big Brother winner, your life becomes your job. And your body becomes your life.
The September after Josie won Big Brother, the National Enquirer put her arse on the cover of its magazine. It was a paparazzi picture, taken from behind, of Josie in a bikini. That was how it started. These photos (first published in the Sun) led to her losing more than 6 stone and releasing a bestselling fitness DVD. It's through her column in Now magazine that we can follow the changes she's made to her body – the first cosmetic treatments she discussed were her dermal fillers, later her teeth. Soon after the Enquirer splash, she revealed that she had a stalker. "It started with a text: 'No wonder John James left you with your fat c**t vile body,'" she said, "and it got worse from there."
Her documented dieting and exercise continued – Josie Gibson's 30-Second Slim is the fourth-bestselling fitness DVD on Amazon; its cover, like Chantelle's Boot Camp Workout and Five-Step Fat Attack with Claire Richards from Steps (full title), shows before and after pictures in a neon bikini. When Josie dropped to a size 8 she told New! magazine: "I went to the National History Museum and [my boyfriend] Luke pointed out that my tits looked like a Neanderthal's. That's when I thought: 'He's right. I've got to do something about it.'" At the end of May she wrote: "I had my boob job last Thursday and am recovering at home… My biggest worry is that I will put on weight during my recovery period."
The terrible thing is that I feel complicit in the overhaul of her body. As a Big Brother fan, it was me and my co-watchers who propelled her to this odd non-place where your job is just teeth and air. Where, when the wound is fresh, you put your name to a sugary perfume. A smell that works as a half-metaphor about ambition and invisibility and how things run out.
Somebody told me about another ex-Big Brother contestant whose money comes now purely from pap pictures. A guest at her recent baby shower in a restaurant in central London, she watched the celebrity open her gifts in slow motion to allow the photographers outside the window to get convincing reaction shots.
What, I wonder, is the psychological effect of a job that requires you to simply continue existing? Unlike an athlete, for whom the body is a tool to win things with, a Big Brother winner's body is its own race track. So the worst thing Josie Gibson could do now is stay happy. Something must change – the boobs must rupture, she must get "too thin", her relationship must end and lead to comfort eating– otherwise we lose interest and her career in bodychange will end.
"My fitness DVD has sold over 120,000 copies and I've got plans for a second DVD next year, plus a fitness website and an app," said Gibson, now 28. "But if this all runs out," she added, "who will employ me?"

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Chancellor Jeffrey Osborne: Barack Obama confuses George with soul star US president reportedly called George Osborne 'Jeffrey' three times during chancellor's G8 presentation on tax avoidance

The chancellor of the exchequer and the American R&B star - it's easy to get confused, isn't it?

As swingeing government cuts bite, critics may have questioned George Osborne's soul, but Barack Obama appears to have no such doubts about the chancellor.
During Osborne's briefing to G8 leaders on plans to cut down on tax avoidance, the US president reportedly called the him by the wrong name, later explaining that he had confused him with his favourite soul star, who shares a surname with the chancellor, if perhaps not much else.
While Osborne set out his proposals, Obama interjected three times with the intention of offering his support to "Jeffrey". After realising his mistake, according to the FT, he told the chancellor: "I'm sorry, man. I must have confused you with my favourite R&B singer."
The singer in question is the 65-year-old soul star Jeffrey Osborne, perhaps best known for his 1982 hit On the Wings of Love.
The chancellor George Osborne (left) and the US R&B star Jeffery Osborne. Photograph: Getty The American Osborne made a career out of his rich, expressive baritone. By contrast the British Osborne, son of the 17th Baronet of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon in County Waterford, Ireland, was described as having "high-pitched vocal delivery" by senior Conservatives, according to the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables.
Whether the chancellor is a fan of the soul star is unclear, but one suspects the latter's 1988 hit She's on the Left, which topped the US R&B charts, might not be to his taste.

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G8 summit: Cameron has misjudged by putting Syria on the agenda Discussing Syria is likely to result in discord between Russia and the west which could sour the atmosphere of the summit

British prime minister David Cameron and Russian president Vladimir Putin in London ahead of the G8 summit. Photograph: Aleksey Nikolskyi/Pool/EPA

For once a G8 summit has a good idea on the table. David Cameron's call for today's Ulster meeting to agree action against tax havens is original, sensible and needs international concord to push it through. Success would be a real triumph for him. A treaty will take time, but it is good to start now.
So why spoil it with Syria? Syria is a racing certainty to result in discord. It is bound to lead the west and Russia to squabble with each other. Disagreement has already erupted, even within the west's camp. Worst of all, Syria could only sour the atmosphere at the summit itself and reduce the chance of agreement elsewhere.
For Cameron to put Syria on the agenda was a sure-fire own goal. Russia's Vladimir Putin even did him the courtesy of passing through Downing Street yesterday to tell him so. Russia might be at blame for supporting Assad, an old and disreputable ally, in his time of need. But to Putin, Britain and America were supporting a bunch of rebellious – even cannibalistic – fanatics. As for America, Barack Obama has enough trouble with his tub-thumping arms suppliers back home without having Cameron screeching on about war.

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Barack Obama describes Northern Ireland as 'blueprint' for peace

US President uses opening of G8 to deliver impassioned speech urging young Belfast listeners to 'face the future united'

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In his speech, Barack Obama noted it had been 15 years since the Good Friday agreement that paved the way for power sharing. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Barack Obama made an impassioned plea on Monday for the walls still dividing Belfast to come down, while describing the Northern Ireland peace process as a blueprint to end other conflicts around the world.
In an address made inside the Waterfront Hall, in Belfast, the US president urged his mainly young audience from a range of secondary schools in the city to break down the barriers that still divide Catholic from Protestant in the city.
Speaking before the formal opening of the G8 summit at the Lough Erne resort, in county Fermanagh, Obama argued it was up to individuals to decide whether "your communities deal with the past and face the future united, together," which, he added "isn't something you have to wait for someone else to do – that's a choice you have the power to make".
He said it was up to people to choose whether to act as good neighbours or let their children "play with kids who attend a different church", before making one last plea: "And whether you reach your own outstretched hand across dividing lines, across peace walls, to build trust in a spirit of respect – that's up to you."
Obama also singled out a community project in Alexandra Park, north Belfast, which has helped create a breach in one of the 30-plus barriers that for the last 20 years has separated a public park into Catholic and Protestant zones. Last year community activists on both sides of the divided park agreed to put a gate inside the wall which is opened during the day to allow the public access to the entire park. Community workers from either side of the line have a set of keys and close the gate at night.
Politicians who were once bitter enemies, like the Democratic Unionist MP Sammy Wilson and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, sat together in the hall, laughing and joking before his speech. They heard him praise them too, with the president noting that it had been 15 years since the Good Friday agreement that paved the way for power sharing at the devolved assembly.
"Understand how extraordinary that is. For years, few conflicts in the world seemed more intractable. And the world rejoiced in your achievement. Especially in America. Pubs from Chicago to Boston were scenes of revelry, folks celebrating the hard work of Hume, Trimble, Adams, Paisley, and so many others," Obama said.
Michelle Obama introduced her husband to the hall after 16-year-old Hannah Nelson read a poem for peace. The first lady said: "Wherever we go, no matter what's on our plate, we do our best to meet young people like you. You are the most important people we talk to on our visits because in just a couple of decades you will be the ones in charge. When I look around this room I just don't see a bunch of teeangers, but future world leaders."
Security was tight around the riverside venue and only one demonstrator picketed the event, holding up a poster stating: "Obama is the anti-Christ".
Inside the hall the reaction to the president was little more than rapturous. Euan Loughrey, 15, from St Malachy's College, in Belfast, had a copy of Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, hoping to get it signed.
"I loved that part of Michelle's speech when she reminded everyone that she and her husband came from nothing. That was a wonderful point to make and gives us all hope we can do anything," he said.
Later Obama and David Cameron visited an integrated primary school in Enniskillen where Protestant and Catholic pupils are taught together

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UTALII TANZANIA: Viboko wa ajabu wasiojulikana kwa watalii

Viboko wakijidai majini 

Ni kilometa 123 kutoka Kilwa Masoko yalipo makao makuu ya Wilaya ya Kilwa. Katika wilaya hiyo kuna Kijiji cha Makangaga na kuna kivutio kizuri cha utalii kwa mfano viboko wa ajabu ambao wanatii amri mbalimbali.

Wakazi wa kijiji hicho chenye wakazi wapatao 1525 wanaotokana na makabila ya Wamwera, Wangindo, Wamakonde, na Wamachinga ambao wanalitumia eneo hilo kama kivutio cha utalii ambalo linachangia pato la wakazi wa eneo hilo mpaka taifa kutokana na watalii wa ndani na nje.

Viboko wa ajabu

Katika Kijiji cha Makangaga, kilometa tisa kutoka kijijini hapo, kuna Mto Nyange uliosheheni viboko wa ajabu ambao wana tabia ya ‘kucheka’ na kutii amri zinazotolewa, hakika ukifika unajua wamefundishwa, ni fursa nzuri ya utalii kama itatumiwa vyema.

Majira ya usiku viboko hao wanapenda kutembea kando ya maeneo yao kwa ajili ya kujipatia vyakula na sehemu kubwa wanakula majani na pia wana tabia za ziada.

Zaidi ya miaka 100 iliyopita mto huo uliotengeneza bwawa na haukuwa na kiboko hata mmoja, wakazi wa maeneo hayo walitumia bwawa hilo kwa shughuli za uvuvi na mahitaji ya maji kwa kazi za kawaida.

Mkazi wa eneo hilo Yahaya Selemani Engema anaeleza chanzo ni mkazi mmoja aliyetajwa kwa jina la Kimombo ambaye alikuwa mvuvi hodari kwenye bwawa hilo.

Lakini siku moja alipokwenda kuvua hakurejea na historia kuanzia hapo baada ya wananchi kuona kiboko mmoja kwenye bwawa hilo.

“Ndugu zake baada ya kusubiri kwa siku sita wakiamini atarejea, waliamua kwenda bwawani hapo kwa nia ya kumtafuta, walimwita kwa kutumia lugha ya kabila la Wamachinga, ajabu baada ya kutokea Kimombo kama walivyotarajia alitokea kiboko ambaye alicheka kama ishara ya kuitika, kutokana na hali hiyo ndugu wa familia ya mvuvi huyo waliamini ndugu yao alizama kwenye bwawa hilo na kubadilika kuwa kiboko ambao wanatabia ya kucheka,”anasema Omari Yanda mmoja wazee maarufu kijiini hapo.

Kila mwaka hivi sasa inakadiriwa kuwa wanafikia zaidi ya viboko 300, na kwamba wanatii amri ya ukoo wa Kimombo.

“Familia iliyoshikilia wanyama hao ni ya Kimombo wanarithishana kwa kuwa kiboko wa kwanza alitoka katika familia hiyo, wageni wanaofika kuwaona viboko hao huwaita viboko hao kwa kutumia jina la Kimombo ndipo viboko hao hujitokeza wakicheka,” anasema Yanda.

Miongoni mwa maajabu ya viboko hao ni kuwa wana uwezo wa kujitokeza pindi wanapohitajika kwa maana wakitakiwa wajitokeze wadogo wataibuka wadogo na wakitakiwa wajitokeze wazee watajitokeza wazee wote waliomo bwawani

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