WASHINGTON, Feb. 6--Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton faced a protracted battle while John McCain took charge of the Republican race after the “Super Tuesday“ presidential nominating contests in 24 US states.
In the biggest day of US presidential voting before the November 4 election to succeed President George W. Bush, Obama won 13 states and Clinton took eight, Reuters reported.
Clinton’s wins included the key prizes of California and New York, making for a virtual draw in the hard-fought Democratic duel.
McCain won nine contests, including victories in California and the Northeast, to take a commanding lead in the Republican race.
The Arizona senator whose campaign was all but dead last summer captured a huge haul of the convention delegates who select the party’s presidential nominee, taking several big states where delegates are granted on a winner-take-all basis.
Republican rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee kept their hopes alive and vowed to fight on, but could face growing questions about the viability of their campaigns. Romney won seven states and Huckabee won five.
“Tonight, I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party frontrunner for the nomination,“ McCain told supporters in Scottsdale, Arizona. “And I don’t really mind it one bit.“
The mixed results, with all contenders in both parties scoring at least five wins, were set to prolong the nominating races that began in early January. A new round of contests in a half-dozen states is scheduled within the next week, including Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
The close Democratic contest, which has generated wide public interest, gives voters the chance to nominate a candidate who could be the first black US president, Illinois Senator Obama, or the first female president, New York Senator Clinton.
The Clinton and Obama camps said they expected Tuesday’s delegate count to wind up relatively even. Overall, by early Wednesday, Clinton had 845 delegates and Obama 765, the Washington Post said, well short of the 2,025 needed to win the nomination.
In the Republican race, the Post said McCain had 613 delegates to Romney’s 269 and Huckabee’s 190, with 1,191 needed to win.
Economic worries--plunging housing values, rising energy and food prices, jittery financial markets and new data showing a big contraction in the service sector -- eclipsed the Iraq war as voters’ top concern in both parties, exit polls showed.
More than half the total delegates to the Democratic convention in August and about 40 percent of the delegates to the Republican convention in September were up for grabs in Tuesday’s voting.
But with no knockout blow delivered, some commentators worried about a fresh round of divisiveness.
“Polls of Democratic voters on Tuesday made it clear that the politics of identity--race, gender, class--was driving the contest between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the Republican contests, the far-right fringe is trying to maul their party’s frontrunner, Senator John McCain,“ said the New York Times in an editorial.
The coming contests “may only increase the pressure on campaigns that are more than willing to bare their fangs,“ it added.
However, despite the victory by Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator McCain on Super Tuesday, it seems that other candidates in both Republican and Democrat camps do not want to leave the electoral race. If the final candidate of Republicans is specified, the rivalry between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee for occupying the second place in the primary elections will continue. This is because the second candidate has a higher chance of being designated as vice president.

TEHRAN, Feb. 6--Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi has issued a decree prohibiting the detention of suspects without being formally charged, in his latest move to reform Iran’s legal system.
The announcement on Tuesday comes less than a week after Ayatollah Shahroudi ordered that no public executions would take place in Iran without his prior approval and banned the publication of photographs of these executions, IRNA reported.
The decree, reported by a number of Iranian newspapers, including the judiciary mouthpiece Hemayat, noted that the judicial apparatus should not hold suspects, issue summons or set bail without pressing charges.
“Refrain from summoning people without pressing charges.
Refrain from holding people under arrest without pressing charges. Refrain from granting bail without pressing charges,“ read the text of the decree.
The text added that Shahroudi issued the decree “because of the importance and the necessity of fully abiding by and implementing the prosecution regulations“.
It added that there have been reports “talking about discrepancies in methods that resulted in wasting time, expense and frustration“.
The decree also ordered that warrants must be completed accurately and properly.
Earlier, Judiciary Spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said capital punishment “should not be implemented or publicized in a way that would be a psychological disturbance to society, especially the young“.

LONDON, Feb. 6--Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown says the British government is not convinced that the Mujahideen Khalq Organization has given up terrorism, saying its forced disarmament by US forces was “entirely pragmatic“.
During the Iraq war, the MKO was “considered by coalition forces to be completely assimilated into the security apparatus of the Saddam Hussein regime“, Malloch-Brown was quoted as saying by IRNA.
“We had to disarm the organization to the extent of 2,100 tanks, vehicles and artillery pieces. Since then, it has made no renunciation of terrorism and disarmed only in the face of pressure from coalition forces,“ he said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed in December that the British government would not de-proscribe the MKO, saying there was “no evidence“ it had changed and that it was “certainly the case it has been involved in terrorist activity“.
Speaking during a House of Lords debate, the Foreign Office minister added that there was also “no evidence that the organization has publicly renounced violence and terrorism“.
“We have to be consistent in our views of terrorists,“ he told supporters of protracted attempts to have the MKO removed from Britain’s domestic list of proscribed organizations, suggesting they had been falsely influenced.
“When we like the people whom terrorists attack, we call them ’terrorists’; when it is the civilians of Iran who are attacked, we have a bad habit of thinking of them as liberation fighters,“ he said.
“Terrorism and its tactics are objectionable, irrespective of the target.“
The MKO was “responsible for a number of serious military attacks over a very long period of time“, he said, without mentioning the hundreds of Iranians killed in terrorist assassinations.
“There is a big difference between military campaigns that fall within the Geneva conventions and the rest of international law and abusive campaigns that target asymmetrically civilians. I hope we have a consistent policy toward such groups,“ he said.
“Its disarming was entirely pragmatic--in the event of the coalition forces forcing it to disarm after the intervention in Iraq,“ he said.
Malloch-Brown also said that despite its claims on supporting women’s rights and being led by a woman, “we are not convinced that in other regards this organization has permanently renounced terrorism“.
“Until we are convinced that the organization has really foresworn those tactics, we continue to believe it to be a threat to civilians,“ he said.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 6--South Africa is protesting a push by five veto-wielding Security Council members to adopt new sanctions resolution against Iran, saying it wants to wait for a report from the UN nuclear agency later this month.
South Africa’s UN Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said on Tuesday that the International Atomic Energy Agency would issue a new report on Iran’s nuclear activities by Feb. 20, Reuters reported.
“Why are we rushing? Can’t we wait for it?“ he said while talking to reporters.
“We just want to be sure that the council has all the information that it requires before it acts, but the timing is very important.“
The five permanent members--the US, Russia, China, Britain and France--circulated the text of their proposed new sanctions resolution on Friday night to South Africa and the nine other elected council members, who serve two-year terms.
It includes bans on travel and equipment that can be used in civilian and nuclear programs, stepped up monitoring of Iran’s financial institutions, and inspection of air and sea cargo heading to or from Iran.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said foreign ministers of the five powers, along with Germany, which has been a key negotiator with Iran, want council action soon.
Delaying a vote until after the International Atomic Energy Agency report “is not the kind of understanding they had among the six foreign ministers“, he said.
The six global powers offered Iran a package of economic incentives and political rewards in June 2006 if it agreed to freeze uranium enrichment before talks on its nuclear program.
But Iran has refused, despite two previous sets of UN sanctions.

BAGHDAD, Iraq,
Feb. 6--The US military has faced complaints from its Sunni allies over confirmed reports that more Iraqi civilians have been killed by the US troops in the country.
The disputes have further strained ties with the so-called US-backed anti-Al-Qaeda fighters considered crucial in turning the tide against extremist violence, AP reported.
The latest deaths occurred on Tuesday when US troops stormed a squat, mud-brick house in the village of Adwar, 10 miles (16 km) south of Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit.
The predominantly Sunni area is home to many former members of Saddam’s regime and has been the frequent site of the US raids.
The US military claimed that a gun-battle broke out after the troops came under small-arms fire by two suspected terrorists.
It acknowledged a woman was killed and a child was wounded, but said it was not clear who shot them.
Two other men were killed and the military described them as insurgents.
But Iraqi police, relatives and neighbors said a couple and their 19-year-old son were shot to death in their beds by the US troops.
Iraqi police also said two girls were wounded and one later died.
Television footage showed the doors pockmarked with bullet holes and pillows and other bedding on the floor were soaked with blood.
It was the second time in as many days that the US military conceded involvement in the death of Iraqi civilians.
On Monday, the military said it had accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians, including a child, in an air-strike Saturday while targeting Al-Qaeda in Iraq south of Baghdad.
The killings illustrate the increasing difficulty in identifying the enemy as the nature of the US-led war in Iraq has changed.

IranÕs forward Mehrzad Madanchi (white) vies for the ball during their 2010 World Cup qualifying match against Syria in Tehran, Feb. 6.

TEHRAN, Feb. 6--Syria held Iran to a goalless draw on Wednesday in an Asian World Cup qualifier.
Iran, which is aiming to qualify for the World Cup for the fourth time, played at Azadi Stadium without a full-time coach. Former Spain coach Javier Clemente has been officially named to take over the team, but he has not yet signed a contract. Iran and Syria are in Group E along with the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.