Iran's parliament re-elected hard-liner Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf on Tuesday as its speaker, reaffirming its hard-right makeup in the wake of a helicopter crash that killed the country's president and foreign minister.

Of 287 lawmakers voting, 198 backed Qalibaf to retain the position he first took in 2021. He initially became speaker following a string of failed presidential bids and 12 years as the leader of Iran’s capital city, in which he built onto Tehran’s subway and supported the construction of modern high-rises.

Many, however, know Qalibaf for his support as a Revolutionary Guard general for a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999. He also reportedly ordered live gunfire be used against Iranian students in 2003 while serving as the country’s police chief.

In Tuesday's vote, challenger Mojtaba Zonnouri, a hard-line Shiite cleric who once led parliament's national security commission, won 60 votes. A former foreign minister to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Manouchehr Mottaki, received five votes.

Qalibaf offered no immediate remarks after the vote. The March parliament election saw the country’s lowest turnout since its 1979 revolution. Of those elected to the 290-seat body, hard-liners hold over 230 seats, according to an Associated Press survey.

A trained pilot, Qalibaf served in the paramilitary Guard during the country’s bloody 1980s war with Iraq. After the conflict, he served as the head of the Guard’s construction arm, Khatam al-Anbia, for several years leading efforts to rebuild.

Qalibaf then served as the head of the Guard’s air force, when in 1999 he co-signed a letter to reformist President Mohammad Khatami amid student protests in Tehran over the government closing a reformist newspaper and a subsequent security force crackdown. The letter warned Khatami the Guard would take action unilaterally unless he agreed to putting down the demonstrations.

Violence around the protests saw several killed, hundreds wounded and thousands arrested.

Qalibaf then served as the head of Iran’s police, modernizing the force and implementing the country’s 110 emergency phone number. However, a leaked recording of a later meeting between Qalibaf and members of the Guard’s volunteer Basij force, included him claiming that he ordered gunfire be used against demonstrators in 2003, as well as praising the violence used in Iran’s 2009 Green Movement protests.

Qalibaf ran failed presidential campaigns in 2005, 2013 and 2017, the last of which saw him withdraw in support of the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi. Raisi later became president and died in the May 19 helicopter crash that also killed Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others.

Iran’s parliament plays a secondary role in governing the country, though it can intensify pressure on a presidential administration when deciding on the annual budget and other important bills. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, 85, has the final say in all important state matters.

Iran will hold presidential elections on June 28 to replace Raisi. On Thursday, a five-day registration period for candidates will open.

After Iran mourned president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a recent helicopter crash, the nation's focus turns to an election next month for his successor, with the conservative camp seeking a loyalist to supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
The lead-up to the early vote on June 28 has opened up the field to a broad range of hopefuls from all political parties. The big question for them is how many candidacies will survive the vetting process in Iran, AFP said.
Ultraconservative Raisi, who had more than a year left of his first term, died on May 19 alongside his foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six others when their helicopter crashed into a fog-shrouded mountainside.
They were laid to rest in multi-day funeral rites drawing mass crowds of mourners.
The June vote will be held during a turbulent time, as the Gaza war rages between Iran's arch-foe Israel and Tehran-backed Palestinian group Hamas, and amid continued diplomatic tensions over Iran's nuclear program.
Iran also faces sustained economic hardship, exacerbated by tough international sanctions reimposed after the United States withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal, and in the aftermath of widespread anti-government protests.
Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state, has assigned Raisi's vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, 68, to assume interim duties for the next few weeks and organize the June election.
Media reports suggest Mokhber himself plans to run for Iran's second-highest post, as do parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and several prominent former officials.
Among other hopefuls, ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was one of the first to announce his candidacy.
Other contenders include moderate former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and centrist Ali Larijani, who served as the speaker in parliament.
Populist ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has so far kept voters guessing and said he is "checking the conditions to decide whether to register".
"We have to wait for positive developments in the country," he added.
Vetting process
Iran was rocked from late 2022 by nationwide protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, following her arrest in Tehran over an alleged breach of the strict dress code for women.
Hundreds of people including dozens of security personnel were killed and thousands were arrested.
Political expert Abbas Abdi told the reformist newspaper Hammihan that if Iran's "protesting community" sees an opportunity for change, it "will show its protest, activism and responsibility through participating in the election".
He said that he was "sure that the reformists will win with a huge margin", but only if they are allowed to participate -- a major concern after many candidates were disqualified ahead of recent elections.
Abdi added that if the authorities permit a broad spectrum of candidates to run this time, "it will create the necessary hope in the people and lead to high participation".
Under Iran's election process, candidates will have several days to formally register, starting on May 30.
The final list, however, will depend on the outcome of the validation process by the conservative-dominated Guardian Council following a June 3 registration deadline.
The 12-member body, which is in charge of overseeing elections, had previously barred many candidates, among them Ahmadinejad and Larijani.
Recent parliamentary and presidential elections have seen plunging turnout, despite efforts by the authorities to encourage people to vote.
Ahead of Iran's parliamentary elections held on March 1, the Guardian Council disqualified tens of thousands of candidates.
With many of them reformists and moderates, the vetting effectively helped Iran's conservative and ultraconservative politicians tighten their grip on power.
The March legislative vote saw the lowest turnout since 1979.
Low voter turnout
The 2021 election that brought Raisi to power also saw many reformist and moderate figures disqualified from the race, and the turnout hit a record low for any presidential polls in Iran.
During his years in office, Raisi faced a barrage of criticism from former officials and activists, including over his handling of an already fragile economy.
Raging inflation, rampant unemployment and record currency depreciation dogged Raisi's presidency, while his government failed to clinch a deal with Washington to revive the nuclear deal and lift sanctions.
He also faced criticism for the government's handling of the street protests sparked by Amini's death.
More recently, spillover from the Gaza war saw tensions with Israel skyrocket and climax in mid-April when Iran carried out its first-ever direct attack against Israel.
Iranian forces and allied groups unleashed hundreds of drones and missiles, most of which were intercepted by Israel and its partners.
Amid all the turmoil, Iran's leaders have urged a calm election process.
On Monday, the new parliament started its first session with a message from Khamenei calling on the lawmakers to keep away from "useless media contests and harmful political controversies".

A rocket launched by North Korea to deploy the country’s second spy satellite exploded shortly after liftoff Monday, state media reported, in a setback for leader Kim Jong Un’s hopes to operate multiple satellites to better monitor the US and South Korea.

Monday’s failed launch came hours after leaders of South Korea, China and Japan met in Seoul in their first trilateral meeting in more than four years. It’s highly unusual for North Korea to take provocative action when China, its major ally and economic pipeline, is engaging in high-level diplomacy in the region.

The launch drew rebukes from the North’s neighbors because the UN bans North Korea from conducting any such launches, viewing them as covers for testing long-range missile technology.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said it launched a spy satellite aboard a new rocket at its main northwestern space center. But KCNA said the rocket blew up during a first-stage flight soon after liftoff due to a suspected engine problem.

KCNA cited the unidentified vice director of the National Aerospace Technology Administration as saying that a preliminary examination showed that the explosion was related to the reliability of operation of the newly developed liquid oxygen-petroleum engine. He said other possible causes will be investigated, according to KCNA.

Japan’s government briefly issued a missile warning for the southern prefecture of Okinawa, urging residents to take shelter inside buildings and other safer places. The warning was lifted later because the region was no longer in danger, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said.

Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara called the North’s launch “a serious challenge to the entire world.” The US Indo-Pacific Command criticized the launch as a “brazen violation” of UN Security Council resolutions and said it involved technologies that are directly related to North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile program. South Korea’s Unification Ministry called a satellite launch by the North “a provocation that seriously threatens our and regional security.”

North Korea has steadfastly maintained it has the right to launch satellites and test missiles in the face of US-led military threats. North Korea says the operation of spy satellites will allow it to better monitor the US and South Korea and improve the precision-striking capabilities of its missiles.

During the trilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese Premier Li Qiang earlier Monday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called for stern international action if North Korea went ahead with its launch plan.

Kishida, for his part, urged the North to withdraw its launch plan, but Li didn’t mention the launch plan as he offered general comments about promoting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula through a political resolution.

Earlier Monday, North Korea had notified Japan’s coast guard about its planned launch with a warning to exercise caution in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and China and east of the main Philippine island of Luzon during a launch window from Monday through June 3.

Some observers say that North Korea’s satellite launch on the first day of its eight-day window might have been aimed at casting a chill over the Seoul-Beijing-Tokyo meeting and registering its displeasure with China. Kim Jong Un has been embracing the idea of a “new Cold War” and seeking to boost ties with Beijing and Moscow to forge a united front against Washington, so China’s diplomacy with Seoul and Tokyo might have been a disturbing development for Pyongyang.

Kim’s primary focus in recent months has been on Russia, as Pyongyang and Moscow — both locked in confrontations with Washington — expand their military cooperation. China, which is much more sensitive about its international reputation, has joined Russia in blocking US-led efforts at the UN Security Council to tighten sanctions on the North but has been less bold and open about supporting Kim’s “new Cold War” drive.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Monday strongly criticized a joint statement issued by Li, Yoon and Kishida, calling it “wanton interference in its internal affairs.” The ministry took issue with parts of the joint statement that said the three leaders re-emphasized their existing positions on the issue of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

While North Korea focused much of its criticism on South Korea for allegedly being chiefly responsible for the statement, it’s still extremely rare for North Korea to slam a statement signed by China.

The failed satellite launch is a blow to Kim’s plan to launch three more military spy satellites in 2024 in addition to his country’s first military reconnaissance satellite that was placed in orbit last November.

The November launch followed two failed liftoffs.

In the first attempt, the North Korean rocket carrying the satellite crashed into the ocean soon after liftoff. After the second attempt, North Korea said there was an error in the emergency blasting system during the third-stage flight.

Canada said on Monday it would grant temporary visas to 5,000 Gaza residents under a special program for Canadians' relatives living in the war-torn enclave, a preparatory move in case they are able to leave in the future.

That figure is an increase from the 1,000 temporary resident visas allotted under a special program for Gaza announced in December, the immigration ministry said in a statement, adding that many people had expressed interest.

"While movement out of Gaza is not currently possible, the situation may change at any time. With this cap increase, we will be ready to help more people as the situation evolves," Immigration Minister Marc Miller said.

The minister has previously said leaving Gaza is extremely difficult and dependent on approval from Israel.

In one of its latest attacks, an Israeli airstrike triggered a massive blaze killing 45 people in a tent camp in the Gaza city of Rafah, officials said on Monday, prompting an outcry from global leaders.

Canada has been sharing the names of Gaza residents who have passed preliminary screening to local authorities to secure their exit, Miller said. Israel and Egypt are important to the program's efforts toward reuniting families in Canada, the minister said.

A spokesperson for Miller said some Gaza residents had arrived in Canada under the program, but a precise tally was not immediately available.

Nearly 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive in Gaza, according to the local health ministry, and an estimated 1.7 million people, more than 75% of Gaza's population, have been displaced, according to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.

Israel launched its military campaign after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Rafah strike.

Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, a confidential report by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Monday.

The report, seen by The Associated Press, said Iran now has 142.1 kilograms (313.2 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60% — an increase of 20.6 kilograms (45.4 pounds) since the last report in February. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

According to the report, Iran’s overall stockpile of enriched uranium stands at 6201.3 kilograms (13671.5 pounds), which represents an increase of 675.8 kilograms (1489.8 pounds) since the last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In its current report, the IAEA also said Tehran has not reconsidered the agency's September 2023 decision of barring the most experienced nuclear inspectors from monitoring its nuclear program but added that it expected Iran “to do so in the context of the ongoing consultations between the Agency and Iran.”

The IAEA also said that the deaths of Iran’s President and Foreign Minister in a helicopter crash have caused a pause in the UN nuclear watchdog’s talks with Tehran over improving cooperation.

In its current report, the IAEA said that Iran suggested in a letter dated May 21 that discussions related to the cooperation between the IAEA and Iran “be continued in Tehran ‘on an appropriate date that will be mutually agreed upon’.”

Iran has maintained its nuclear program is peaceful, but the IAEA chief, Rafael Mariano Grossi, has already warned that Tehran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels to make “several” nuclear bombs if it chose to do so.

He has acknowledged the agency cannot guarantee that none of Iran’s centrifuges may have been peeled away for clandestine enrichment.

Iran and the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog are still negotiating over how to implement a deal struck last year to expand inspections of Tehran’s rapidly advancing atomic program.

The IAEA's acknowledgment shows the challenges his inspectors face, years after the collapse of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers and the wider tensions gripping the Mideast over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Tornado-spawning thunderstorms that swept the US Southern Plains and Ozarks have killed at least 21 people as of Monday morning across four states and wrecked hundreds of buildings, with forecasters warning of more severe weather.

The death toll over the Memorial Day weekend includes at least eight fatalities in Arkansas, seven in Texas, four in Kentucky and two in Oklahoma, according to tallies by state emergency authorities.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency early on Monday while the National Weather Service said a severe thunderstorm watch was issued for parts of Georgia and South Carolina until at least Monday afternoon.

"It was a tough night for our people," the Kentucky governor said on social media platform X on Monday. He later said in a press briefing that "devastating storms" had hit almost the entire state. Officials said 100 state highways and roads were damaged by the storms.

At least seven people perished - including two children aged 2 and 5 from a single family - and nearly 100 were injured on Saturday night when a powerful tornado struck communities in north Texas near the Oklahoma border, Governor Greg Abbott said at a Sunday news conference.

Late on Sunday, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the state had at least eight deaths after the storms. A resident in Arkansas suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease died due to lack of oxygen when the power went out.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans faced power outages on Monday due to the weather, according to the PowerOutage.US tracking website, with Kentucky alone having over 180,000 outages.

In some areas, restoring power could take days, Beshear, the Kentucky governor said in a news briefing on Monday.

The National Weather Service warned of additional storms moving through the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, bringing damaging winds, large hail and more tornadoes, as well as heavy downpours capable of triggering flash floods.

The latest extreme weather came just days after a powerful tornado ripped through an Iowa town, killing four people, and more twisters touched down in Texas last week.

Meanwhile, the US was preparing for what government forecasters have called a potentially "extraordinary" 2024 Atlantic hurricane season beginning June 1.

Saeed Jalili, the representative of the Iranian leader in the Supreme National Security Council, confirmed his intention to run in the presidential elections scheduled for June 28, to choose a successor to late President Ebrahim Raisi.

The Fars new agency reported that Jalili told four deputies from the city of Mashhad that he seriously intends to join the electoral race. The politician was a candidate in the previous elections, but withdrew in favor of Raisi.

The Iranian hardliner will be the first candidate in the early elections, following the death of Raisi in a helicopter crash, on his way back from a trip to the Azerbaijan border.

Jalili was responsible for the nuclear negotiations when he was Secretary-General of the Supreme National Security Council under the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The powers of the negotiations were then held by the Council before they were transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs soon after former President Hassan Rouhani came to office in 2013.

Confirmations of Jalili running in the elections came the day after statements made by his ally, Ahmadinejad, whose candidacy was rejected by the Guardian Council in 2021, and before that in 2017.

Ahmadinejad told a group of supporters on Saturday that he was mulling whether to run for president or not.

The Nournews agency, the platform of the Supreme National Security Council, expected that Ahmadinejad would submit a request to run for the presidency, “even though he is sure that the Guardian Council will reject his eligibility to run again.”

The conservatives are also discussing the possibility of nominating two generals in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mohsen Rezaei and Saeed Mohammad, in addition to the Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, as well as the Mayor of Tehran, Ali Reza Zakani.

The Tasnim news agency pointed to the potential candidacy of Parviz Fattah, who heads the Imam’s Implementation Committee, which reports to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office, as well as the Minister of Roads and Urban Development, hardliner Mehrdad Badrbash, who has close ties to the IRGC.

Other media reports stated that the supporters of former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, are pushing towards the nomination of one of the following political figures: former diplomat Mohammad Sadr; Majeed Ansari, Rouhani’s Vice President; Reza Ardakanian, Minister of Energy in Rouhani’s government; and Ali Akbar Salehi, former head of the Iranian Atomic Organization and former Foreign Minister.

A passenger bus crashed into vehicles on a highway in southern Türkiye, killing at least 10 people and leaving 39 others injured, officials said Monday.

The accident occurred in the province of Mersin late on Sunday, when the bus veered into the opposite lane in heavy rain and crashed into two cars.

A truck later slammed into all three vehicles, Gov. Ali Hamza Pehlivan told reporters.

The injured were rushed to nearby hospitals and at least eight of them were in serious condition, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

There were 28 passengers on board the intercity bus, which was traveling from the southeastern city of Diyarbakir to Adana, in the south of the country, Anadolu reported.

Protesters demanding the resignation of Armenia's prime minister on Monday blocked main streets in the capital city and other parts of the country, sporadically clashing with police.

Police said 196 people have been detained in Yerevan. Protests have roiled the country for weeks, sparked by the government's return of four border villages to Azerbaijan.

The demonstrations are spearheaded by Bagrat Galstanyan, a high-ranking cleric in the Armenian Apostolic Church and archbishop of the Tavush diocese in Armenia’s northeast, where the returned villages are located.

Although the villages were the protests' rallying point, they have expanded to express a wide array of complaints against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his government.

Top figures in Gastanyan's Tavush for the Homeland movement told a huge rally in Yerevan on Sunday that they support Galstanyan becoming the next prime minister.

The decision to turn over the villages in Tavush followed a lightning military campaign in September, in which Azerbaijan’s military forced ethnic Armenian separatists in the Karabakh region to capitulate.

After Azerbaijan took full control of Karabakh, about 120,000 people fled the region, almost all from its ethnic Armenian population.

Ethnic Armenian fighters backed by the Armenian military had taken control of Karabakh in 1994 after a six-year war. Azerbaijan regained some of the territory after fighting in 2020 ended an armistice brought on by a Russian peacekeeping force, which began withdrawing this year.

Pashinyan has said Armenia needs to quickly define the border with Azerbaijan to avoid a new round of hostilities.

Italy said on Monday Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza were no longer justifiable in one of the strongest criticisms Rome has made so far against Israel's campaign.

"There is an increasingly difficult situation, in which the Palestinian people are being squeezed without regard for the rights of innocent men, women and children who have nothing to do with Hamas and this can no longer be justified," Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told SkyTG24 TV.

"We are watching the situation with despair."

Latest Israeli air strikes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah killed at least 35 Palestinians and wounded dozens.

Israel said the attack was aimed at a Hamas compound, though its top military prosecutor called it "very grave" and said the army regretted any harm to non-combatants.

Crosetto said Italy agreed in principle with the Israeli response to the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas gunmen on southern Israeli communities, but he added that a difference had to be made between the group and the Palestinian people.

On Saturday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani met Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa in Rome, reiterating their support for a ceasefire and urging Hamas to release Israeli hostages.

Italy has repeatedly said that Israel had a right to defend itself from Hamas. Last week, Rome said an International Criminal Court prosecutor's decision to seek an arrest warrant for Israeli leaders was "unacceptable".