<B>TOKYO. Japan royal boy is born. </B>Succession reform to stall Japan’s Princess Kiko gave birth yesterday to a baby boy, the first imperial male heir to be born in more than four decades and the answer to the prayers of conservatives keen to keep women off the ancient throne. The birth will scuttle for now a plan to let women ascend the throne, an idea opposed by traditionalists eager to preserve a practice they say stretches back more than 2,000 years. That would disappoint many ordinary Japanese, who favour changing the succession to give women equal rights to the throne. TV programmes flashed the news that a male heir – the third in line after his uncle and father – had been born, although tabloid media had forecast weeks earlier that the baby was a boy.

<B>CAPE CANAVERAL. NASA delays space shuttle Atlantis launch .</B> NASA managers delayed filling the space shuttle Atlantis’ fuel tank early yesterday to give technicians time to trouble-shoot a problem with one of the ship’s three onboard fuel cells, a spokeswoman with the US space agency said. NASA had planned to begin pumping 500,000 gallons of cryogenic propellants into the shuttle’s tank in preparation for launch at 16.29 GMT on a mission to resume International Space Station construction. However, when managers met early yesterday to review Atlantis’ launch preparations, they learned one of the ship’s fuel cells, which combine liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen during the flight to produce electricity, had a problem as it was powered for flight. All three of the fuel cells must be working for the shuttle to be cleared for launch.

<B>JOHANNESBURG. Zuma trial heightens S.Africa succession jitters. </B>Uncertainty over who will succeed South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki is starting to worry investors, and may become a bigger blip on their radar if his charismatic former deputy is acquitted of graft. Financial markets have yet to price in the possibility that Jacob Zuma – who has broad support from left-leaning factions in the ruling African National Congress – will be able to fill the country’s looming leadership vacuum, analysts say.

<B>BERLIN. World can’t stand and watch Iran damage UN, says Merkel. </B>The international community cannot stand back and watch Iran damage the UN nuclear authorities with its refusal to heed calls to suspend enrichment, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday. Merkel said that Iran’s response to an offer of incentives and refusal to freeze nuclear enrichment work as demanded by the UN Security Council was unacceptable. “Iran’s response is not satisfactory. We won’t close the door to negotiations but we the international community won’t stand by and watch as Iran harms the rules of the UN nuclear authorities,” Merkel told German lawmakers in a speech

<B>MEXICO CITY. Calderon named Mexico’s president-elect. </B>Defeated leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejected a court decision awarding Mexico’s presidency to Felipe Calderon, insisting he will never recognize his rival’s legitimacy and vowing to create a parallel government from the streets Calderon celebrated his long-delayed victory by reaching out to the millions of Mexicans who did not vote for him and calling on his main adversaries, including Lopez Obrador, to help heal the nation’s divisions.Lopez Obrador’s supporters threw trash at the headquarters of Mexico’s Federal Electoral Tribunal, whose seven magistrates voted unanimously Tuesday to declare Calderon president-elect. The decision rejected Lopez Obrador’s allegations of systematic fraud and awarded Calderon the presidency by 233,831 votes – a margin of 0.56 percent. The ruling cannot be appealed

<B>CAPE TOWN. Putin vows new era in ties on historic South Africa visit. </B>Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to forge a watertight alliance with South Africa, paying an historic visit to Cape Town on a drive to reassert Moscow’s influence in the regionPutin, making his inaugural visit to sub-Saharan Africa and the first ever by a Kremlin leader to the continent’s economic powerhouse, said he wanted to open a new chapter in relations and sharply increase levels of trade. The decades-long interruption in ties between South Africa and Russia is now history,” he told an official dinner hosted by his counterpart Thabo Mbeki.