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A French lecturer charged with spying in Iran after last June’s disputed election has left the country, the French president’s office has said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said Clotilde Reiss would arrive in Paris at about 1300 (1100 GMT).

She was sentenced to 10 years in jail but this was commuted to a fine of $285,000 (£190,000), her lawyer said.

The 25-year-old was accused of espionage and e-mailing photographs of anti-government protests.

"The president of the republic will receive her and her family at the Elysee Palace as soon as she arrives in Paris," AFP quoted the president’s office as saying.

Nuclear link?

Ms Reiss’s lawyer, Mohammad Ali Mahdavi, earlier said he had paid the fine on her behalf.

She has been staying at the French embassy in the capital Tehran since she was bailed six weeks after her arrest in July last year.

At that time, Ms Reiss had been on a six-month teaching and research assignment in the central city of Isfahan.

The BBC’s Hugh Schofield in the French capital says that with France at the forefront of efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear programme, there has been suspicion she was being held to put pressure on Paris.

Last week, France freed an Iranian engineer whom it detained for allegedly exporting electronic parts illegally to sell to Iran’s military.

The US had wanted to extradite Majid Kakavand, but a French court rejected the request last week and he was allowed return home.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Parts of the UK’s airspace are at risk of closure from Sunday because of volcanic activity in Iceland, the Department for Transport has said.

Disruption could affect some of the UK’s busiest airports in south-east England until Tuesday, it warned.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said passenger safety was the government’s top priority.

Ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano caused disruption to thousands of flights during April.

Airspace across Europe was shut down for five days following concerns that ash could turn to molten glass in high temperatures, crippling plane engines.

Scientists and engineers have since revised the safe to fly threshold, but clouds of volcanic ash have continued to drift over Europe, causing airport closures, flight delays and cancellations.

Prediction charts

In the past week, several airports in southern Europe were forced to close and flights were re-routed.

Ministers have agreed on Saturday that five-day ash prediction charts would be made available on the Met Office website.

"Within this timeframe, different parts of UK airspace – including airspace in the South East – are likely to be closed at different times," the Department of Transport said in a statement.

Previous forecasts were only given for the following 18 hours.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said the five-day forecasts would ensure "airlines, other transport providers and the public [had] the best possible information".

But he stressed the situation "remained fluid" and the forecasts – based on assumptions about future volcanic activity and prevailing weather conditions – were "always liable to change".

"Nats – the UK’s air traffic services provider – will advise of any airspace closures as and when they become necessary and I urge passengers to check with their airlines before taking any action," he added.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Thai protesters have stood their ground in Bangkok, defying a vow from PM Abhisit Vejjajiva to use the military to stop them toppling his government.

One protest leader said Thailand was close to "civil war" after clashes in Bangkok between protesters and soldiers that have left 24 people dead.

The fighting flared as the army moved to isolate a fortified protest camp.

Mr Abhisit said he was considering a curfew in Bangkok and has postponed the new school term in the city for a week.

Thousands of people who say Mr Abhisit came to power undemocratically remain behind makeshift barricades of rubber tyres, sandbags and bamboo stakes in the Ratchaprasong commercial district.

The protesters are known as red-shirts, after the colour they have adopted.

They want the prime minister to step down to make way for new elections.

Army ‘prepared’

In a televised address on Saturday, Mr Abhisit said the army would not back down in its operation to clear the protesters.

"We cannot leave the country in a situation where people who don’t obey the law are holding hostage the people of Bangkok, as well as the centre of the country," he said.

"We can’t allow a situation where people set up armed groups and overthrow the government because they don’t agree with it."

Mr Abhisit has said that a few armed "terrorists" are among the protesters.

An army spokesman said the military was planning to enter the protesters’ camp if they did not disperse, but gave no timetable.

"There is a plan to crack down on Ratchaprasong if the protest does not end," said the spokesman, Col Sunsern Kaewkumnerd.

"But authorities will not set a deadline because without effective planning there will be more loss of life."

The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Bangkok says the army’s actions are like squeezing a balloon full of water – they are just pushing protesters into a different part of the city.

Black smoke drifted into the air over Bangkok on Sunday morning but the streets were mostly quiet after three days of fierce battles that saw soldiers fire live rounds and rubber bullets at protesters who threw stones, petrol bombs and shot fireworks in return.

The army has declared live fire zones in some areas as it attempted to cut off the camp from supplies and reinforcements.

Some 170 people have been injured since the latest violence broke out on Thursday, and 27 people have been sent to jail, each given six-month sentences. All the fatalities have been civilians.

More than 50 people have been killed and at least 1,500 wounded in total since the protests began in mid-March, Thai officials have said.

Despite claims by the Thai government that the situation was under control and its soldiers had only fired in self-defence, army snipers have been accused of targeting protesters. Footage from Bangkok on Saturday showed red-shirts dragging gunshot victims to safety.

The violence escalated on Thursday after a renegade general who supports the protests was shot in the head by an unknown gunman.

Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol, better known as Seh Daeng (Commander Red), is in a critical condition.

National divisions

The latest clashes have raised questions about the stability of Thailand, South-East Asia’s second-largest economy.

"The current situation is almost full civil war," said one of the protest leaders, Jatuporn Prompan. "I am not sure how this conflict will end."

Many of the protesters are from poor rural areas in northern Thailand where support is still strong for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.

They say Mr Abhisit was put into power in a parliamentary vote by an alliance of the Bangkok elite and the military and want him to dissolve parliament and call fresh elections.

He had offered polls in November – but the two sides failed to agree a deal because of divisions over who should be held accountable for a deadly crackdown on protests last month.

Mr Thaksin has called on the government to withdraw troops and restart negotiations. He is living abroad to avoid a jail term on a corruption conviction.

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy has admitted that he refused to back his party’s coalition deal with the Conservatives.

Writing in the Observer – ahead of a special Lib Dem conference – Mr Kennedy said he feared it would wreck plans for a progressive centre-left alliance.

His apprehension was shared by some grassroots party members too, he says.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who will address his party later, defended his decision as the only workable option.

The new deputy prime minister told the Guardian newspaper on Saturday that he knew the deal had caused "much surprise and some offence" but the coalition’s agenda was one of "liberalism".

He said he rejected a Labour-led alliance, as it was "unworkable" and would be seen by voters as "illegitimate".

But Mr Kennedy, who led the party from 1999 to 2006, said he could not bring himself to back Mr Clegg in the crucial vote on Tuesday night and now feared the Lib Dems would be swallowed up by the Tories.

"With uncharacteristic understatement Paddy Ashdown described last week’s events as ‘a rather unexpected moment’," he wrote.

"Certainly, they drive a strategic coach and horses through the long-nurtured ‘realignment of the centre-left’ to which leaders in the Liberal tradition, this one included, have all subscribed since the Jo Grimond era.

"It is hardly surprising that, for some of us at least, our political compass currently feels confused."

Replacing Trident

Lord Ashdown, another former party leader, has also expressed concerns about the pact.

On Saturday, Nich Starling, a Lib Dem councillor, said some people felt they had been turned into "liars and fools".

At the conference in Birmingham, party members will have the chance to question Mr Clegg, and fellow cabinet colleagues including the new Business Secretary Vince Cable and the Energy Secretary Chris Huhne over details of the coalition.

BBC political correspondent Louise Stewart said hostile motions were expected to be tabled on issues including tuition fees, the replacement of Trident and increasing VAT.

Members would have the right to vote on the coalition deal, but it was unlikely to have much impact, she added.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Amir Khan says he is looking forward to silencing Paulie Malignaggi when they meet in their WBA light-welterweight title fight in New York on Saturday.

Champion Khan is making his US debut on New Yorker Malignaggi’s home turf at Madison Square Garden.

"I’ve fought a lot of guys who talk a lot but he has to be the number one guy for talking," said Bolton’s Khan, 23.

"I just can’t wait to beat him and shut him up properly so he’s going to end up thinking about not coming back."

Malignaggi’s record is 27 wins and three losses with one of those losses coming against Ricky Hatton in 2008, since when he has changed his training team and rebuilt his game, describing this world title shot as "redemption" for what he has been through.

But Khan, whose record is 22-1, dismissed his opponent, saying: "He won’t be getting another chance after this."

Even Malignaggi’s own manager refers to his fighter as "the mouth that roared", but Khan made light of his taunts, saying it just showed how scared the American was.

"It’s quite funny really when you hear the remarks. I think when a fighter talks a lot of trash he’s probably scared or he’s trying to put something in my head to scare me," he said.

"Paulie’s not one of those fighters who talks trash to sell a fight. He’s doing it because I think he’s under a bit of pressure and he’s got a bit of fear in him.

"So he just wants to scare me so I’m on the same level as him but I’m nice and chilled out."

Khan’s build-up to the fight has been disrupted by visa complications which forced him to relocate his training camp to Canada, but Malignaggi said he wanted to beat Khan fair and square and without anyone making excuses.

"This is an opportunity to beat a champion that everybody is saying is so great and all this," said the former IBF light-welterweight champion.

"But after the fight on Saturday night I don’t want to hear anyone saying Khan was over-rated, or he got stuck in Vancouver, I don’t want to hear anything like that.

"He said he wants the biggest fights in America and he wants to fight Paulie Malignaggi. Well, be careful what you wish for."

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.