Mexico's electoral tribunal on Saturday rejected Lopez Obrador's recount petition, instead ruling for the partial recount at polling stations where it believed there were possible irregularities.

Election officials on Wednesday launched the review of nine percent of votes from the July 2 election at polling districts in 26 of Mexico's 32 states under the supervision of 192 judges and representatives of political parties.

Officials have set a Sunday deadline to complete the recount, and until August 31 to resolve all pending questions. A president-elect must be named by September 6 and assume office on December 1.

Based on initial results, conservative National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderon won by a mere 0.58 percent of the vote - some 244,000 votes. Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) has refused to concede defeat and alleges the election was marked by widespread fraud.

"They accuse us of being obstinate, unyielding, but they forget that what we are demanding is only fair and, I would think, the least" that can be done, he said.

His supporters agreed.

"We come with the intention of showing that the votes in favor of our candidate were lost and to convince the electoral tribunal that it must recount the remaining ballots," PRD official Miguel Moreno told a rally in one of the districts where the vote review was underway.

Most of the polling districts affected by the recount were won by Calderon based on initial results but PRD leaders say there were irregularities in how ballots were tallied.

As election officials began their task, Lopez Obrador followers Wednesday blocked the downtown offices of British bank HSBC, Banamex -- owned by the US giant Citigroup -- and Spain's BBVA-Bancomer.

The action was part of a peaceful civil resistance campaign, said Jose Guadalupe Curiel, a top PRD official.

The move came a day after PRD supporters took over three key toll booths in Mexico's capital for several hours, allowing cars to pass without paying.

Thousands of Lopez Obrador supporters have been camped out in Mexico City for the past 11 days, blocking some eight kilometers (five miles) of the city's main avenue and preventing access to much of the city's historic and financial downtown area.

As for Calderon, he has chosen not to respond to attacks by his leftist rival and instead has operated as if he was already proclaimed the new president, holding numerous meetings with representatives from all sectors of society.

To avoid aggravating the tense political climate, Calderon also called off planned trips to the United States and Chile.

The Migration Amendment Bill still comfortably cleared the House of Representatives, where Howard's coalition government has a strong majority, by 78 votes to 62.

But it faces a rougher ride and possible defeat next week in the Senate, which the government controls with a majority of just one.

The bill is seen by many as a sop to Indonesia, which temporarily withdrew its ambassador after Canberra granted temporary protection visas to 42 Papuan separatists earlier this year.

It seeks to tighten immigration laws so that asylum-seekers who arrive in mainland Australia by boat would be sent to detention centers in the island state of Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea while their claims are processed.

Even those found to be genuine refugees could be refused asylum in Australia and sent instead to other countries.

Currently only asylum-seekers who arrive on outlying islands or are intercepted at sea are processed offshore.

Critics see the bill as an effort to discourage further Papuan separatists from heading to Australia for asylum, a charge Canberra and Jakarta reject.

"The passing of your amendments of your immigration bill is very much an Australian matter. We don't interfere in your internal matters just as you don't interfere in our internal matters," Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu told reporters during an official engagement in Canberra Thursday.

Indonesia won sovereignty over Papua, formerly a Dutch colony, in 1969 after a referendum widely seen as a sham. Papuans have long accused Indonesia's military of violating human rights in the province.

The legislation marks a significant hardening of Howard's immigration policy and a revival and widening of the so-called "Pacific Solution."

The policy of detaining asylum-seekers for processing on Nauru and Manus Island was introduced in late 2001 after an influx of boatpeople, mainly from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Nauru centre hit worldwide headlines in early 2004 when a number of detainees staged a hunger strike and sewed their lips in protest at their incarceration.

Under pressure from the opposition Labor Party and some of his own backbenchers, Howard softened his stance last year and agreed that children and families could be released into the community while their cases were processed.

The offshore camps were effectively mothballed last year, after more than 1,200 asylum seekers held there had been processed. Some 700 gained refugee status and were allowed into Australia while the remainder were returned home.

Opponents of the bill fear it will again see women and children kept behind razor wire. Critics also say the law would restrict access to lawyers for asylum-seekers and breach Australia's international refugee obligations.

Passions ran high at parliament on Thursday as Liberal lawmaker William Tuckey -- a hardline Howard loyalist -- angrily confronted Labor leader Kim Beazley, whose party opposes the legislation.

In a chin-jutting controntation captured on TV cameras outside Parliament House, Beazley mocked Tuckey as "weak" and "worthless," and was called a "fat so and so" in return.

The government now faces a week of closed-door negotiations with a handful of senators, whose vote could scupper the legislation.

"The Al-Saud (family ruling Saudi Arabia) must either respect liberties and introduce democracy or give up the power they usurped," Prince Talal, who has been living in exile in France since
1980, told AFP.

Talal, son of Mohammad II bin Talal al-Rashid, said his opposition group would launch a satellite television channel within three months which will broadcast from a European country to "call on Saudis to rise up against the tyrants and usurpers plundering public funds."

The Rashidi emirs, who were ousted by the Saud family during its struggle to unite Saudi Arabia, are a branch of the Shammar tribal confederation.

Prince Talal, who has retained his title, said that the confederation was backing his new movement.

He said his group, with "some 2,000 active members, mostly in Saudi Arabia," would coordinate its activities with other opponents of the Saudi government at home and abroad, chiefly the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) which calls for a regime change in the kingdom.

Members of the Shammar confederation are believed to number "hundreds of thousands living mainly in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria but also in Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates," said Talal's daughter, Madhawi al-Rashid, a London-based academic.

"They are fertile ground for those who want to carry out the Bush administration's plan to destroy the Cuban revolution," said the newspaper, the official voice of the government. Such an article in Granma usually signals that action is on the way.

The article also decried the "avalanche" of capitalist advertising in commercial television programs.

Since Castro provisionally relinquished power to his brother Raul on July 31 after undergoing gastric surgery, Cubans have been anxious for more information on his condition and the political direction of their country.

Those who get black-market television by cable have watched with amazement images of Miami's exile community celebrating in the streets what they see as the end of Castro's 47-year rule.

Cuban officials say Castro, who will be 80 on Sunday, is recovering from his operation. But neither he nor his brother have been seen in public.

Castro said in an August 1 statement that details of his health were a state secret due to the threat of U.S. intervention in Cuba.

The Bush administration has stepped up pressure for political change in Cuba by increasing broadcasts of U.S.-funded radio and television to the island.

The transmissions are sent from a plane but the Bush administration would like to start beaming its TV Marti broadcasts by satellite.

Anecdotal accounts indicate there are more than 10,000 illegal dishes in use in Cuba. The owner of a dish usually sells the service to others - sometimes hundreds of clients. for $10 a month via hidden cables that crisscross roofs.