In a joint press conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Sunday, Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf said his country will not support expanded membership of the UN Security Council [official website]. Musharraf stated that increasing the number of permanent members on the council "is against the democratic consideration of the sovereign equality of nations."

The two leaders met to discuss Pakistan's efforts to reach a peaceful resolution to its ongoing disputes with India, and to finalize an agreement to fund development of a Pakistani hydropower project. Musharraf made similar comments on the Security Council in a meeting earlier this month with Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi. India is one of the countries often mentioned as a likely candidate for a permanent Security Council seat if the Council is expanded. From Pakistan, the Daily Times has more on the press conference.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov [official profile], in Tehran to discuss an $800 million deal [Aljazeera report] to build a nuclear power plant in southern Iran in 2006, has told a press conference that US efforts to refer Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) [official website] over its nuclear program are "premature and ... counter-productive." The IAEA has imposed a November 25 deadline for Iran to cease all uranium-enrichment activities, and Lavrov stated that he "will be expecting the cooperation between Iran and the IAEA to continue." However, his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharazi [backgrounder], also at the press conference, told reporters:

It is Iran's legitimate right to master nuclear technology including uranium enrichment. There is no talk of stopping it. It's not something Iran can accept. However, Iran is open to any proposal or mechanism to ensure that it won't go towards nuclear weapons.

Germany's highest administrative court has ruled that the Baden-Wurttemberg [official website] region's ban on Muslim teachers wearing headscarves also requires Christian nuns, who teach extensively in the predominantly Catholic region, to remove their habits before entering the classroom. The full text from the Federal Administrative Court [official website] ruling is not yet available, but BBC News, citing an advance copy of tomorrow's Der Spiegel, quotes it as saying that "exceptions for certain forms of religiously motivated clothing in certain regions are out of the question."

Headscarves have been the topic of fierce debate in Germany since teacher Fereshta Ludin [Pluralism Project backgrounder] filed suit after being denied a job in Stuttgart in 1998. Ludin argued that the German constitution guaranteed her right to wear the headscarf. The federal Constitutional Court [official website] ruled in September 2003 that under then-current laws, she was correct, but it also noted that individual states could pass laws banning the headwear. In April 2004, Baden-Wurttemberg's parliament [official website] passed a ban almost unanimously. Law professor Ferdinand Kirchhof [official website, in German], author of the legislation, said the nuns' habits were "professional uniforms" and so not subject to the ban.

In a rare weekend session, the Senate Sunday removed the last procedural obstacles to a vote on what has become known as the JOBS bill, providing $136 billion in tax cuts for corporations ranging from multinationals and manufacturers (defined broadly to include construction and architectural firms) to US-based importers of Chinese ceiling fans.

The House easily passed a conference committee version of HR 4520 [text] on Thursday. Congress sees the bill as must-pass legislation because it includes provisions repealing a $5 billion annual subsidy for US exporters that has been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization [official website]; the European Union has imposed a penalty tariff [Export.gov report] on 1600 products imported from the US, raising the tariff by one percentage point each month that Congress failed to repeal the outlawed tax break. Federal News Radio has more. AP has more on this bill and others discussed in today's Senate session.

Members of Somalia's 275 member parliament [official website] began voting Sunday for the country's interim president. The MPs, who were nominated in August, consist mainly of warlords and clan leaders. They will choose between 26 candidates [AFP report] on the ballot. Somalia has had no government since 1991 and has been overwhelmed by political corruption and civil unrest. The election is being held in Kenya because of security problems in Somalia itself. Reuters has more.

UPDATE: With voting now complete, the Somalian parliamentarians have elected as their new president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, a former army commander and president of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. BBC News provides a profile.

Several opposition candidates in Afghanistan's presidential election who had previously called for a boycott of the election results have softened their position. Rather than supporting a new election as was called for on Saturday, they are now requesting an investigation into irregularities and fraud. The main source of the fraud allegations stem from the ink used to mark voters fingers after casting a ballot. The ink, which should not have washed off, was easily removed, raising concerns that multiple votes could be cast by the same person. The independent Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), which monitored the polling stations, said in a statement that the elections were "fairly democratic" and security was "better than expected." Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) also issued a statement Sunday saying that

Based on reports from our own teams as well as information provided by the European Union election experts, domestic monitors and delegations from a number of countries, we concur with the Joint Election Management Body that the candidates' demand to nullify the election is unjustified. Such action would also put into question the expressed will of millions of Afghan citizens who came out to vote, carried out voter registration and manned the polling stations despite great personal risk.

A senior Bosnian Serb commander was officially taken into custody Sunday by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] at The Hague. Ljubisa Beara [indictment], a former colonel in the Bosnian Serb army, is accused of executing 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica [BBC report] in 1995.

Beara was arrested in Serbia Saturday and later taken to The Hague, where he could face life in prison on the charges of genocide, complicity in genocide, murder, persecutions and forced transfers. Reuters has more.

Today's New York Times covers Afghanistan's peaceful but controversial presidential election. The Times also highlights the US House passage of an emergency aid bill for Florida and the way a little-known law is being used against journalists in the investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

The Washington Post reports on the behind-the-scenes, partisan battles waged by US election officials in battleground states. The Post also covers US Senate approval of a victims' rights bill that would increase access to DNA testing for prison inmates and rape victims, and the re-election of Australian Prime Minister John Howard.