Khatami criticizes successor
Former president Mohammad Khatami fueled speculation of a possible comeback by accusing his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of peddling false statistics to hide rising inflation and unemployment. Khatami, who was regarded as a reformist, said the country's worsening economic woes did not tally with the rosy picture painted by the government, and warned that officially endorsed "lies" would destroy trust in the Islamic system. Speaking at the financial paper Sarmayeh, he said: "Unfortunately, it has become customary that the real issues are concealed and portrayed in some other ways. If there is inflation ... it will not remove the reality if you say it doesn't exist."
■ UNITED STATES
Watson retires after remark
James Watson, famous for DNA research but widely condemned for recent comments about intelligence levels among Africans, retired on Thursday from his post at a prestigious research institution. Watson, 79, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York announced his departure a week after the lab suspended him. He was chancellor of the institution, and his retirement took effect immediately. Watson shared a Nobel Prize in 1962 for co-discovering the structure of the DNA molecule. In his statement on Thursday, Watson said that because of his age, his retirement was "more than overdue. The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired." Watson ran into trouble last week for racist comments.
■ UNITED STATES
Man's sentence `cruel'
Georgia's Supreme Court yesterday ordered the release a young black man who was imprisoned for having consensual oral sex with a white girl when they were both teenagers. The court ruled that Genarlow Wilson's 10-year sentence was cruel and unusual punishment. Wilson was convicted of aggravated child molestation following a 2003 party at a hotel room where he was taped having oral sex with a 15-year-old. Wilson was 17 at the time. He was also charged with raping another 17-year-old girl at the party, but he was acquitted by a jury.
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