The "Yes" side was claiming that an exit poll showed strong support for the European Union's Lisbon Treaty as vote- counting in Ireland's second Lisbon Referendum got under way at 0800 GMT Saturday.

Opposition Fine Gael, who campaigned for a "Yes" vote has claimed that an exit poll shows there has been strong support for the treaty, Ireland's national broadcaster RTE reported.

The party carried out an exit poll using a representative sample of 1,000 voters in 33 locations around the country.

An Iranian opposition cleric said violence and detainments could not solve the current crisis triggered by alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential election, the Iranian website Etemad Melli reported Saturday.

Iran's Guardian Council said Friday that there were no major violations in the June 12 presidential elections and rejected election fraud alleged by the opposition, the news network Khabar reported.

A reporter for a US newspaper was arrested Tuesday in Tehran amid the ongoing Iranian crackdown on foreign media.

The Fars news agency said that the arrested man is a correspondent for the Washington Times newspaper. Further details were not immediately available.

Japan urged Iran to resolve the current situation in a peaceful manner and expressed concern over the clashes between demonstrators and police after the disputed June 12 presidential election.

Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone expressed strong concerns that the number of deaths has risen in the conflicts.

Low voter turnout appeared set Monday to torpedo a bid in Italy to give larger political parties more power.

By Sunday evening, at the end of the first of two days of voting, turnout stood at 16 per cent.

At least 50 per cent of the eligible 50.5 million voters must cast ballots to make the referendum valid. Polls were scheduled to close at 1300 GMT.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday insisted that no cheating had taken place at last week's presidential election and warned protestors that illegal initiatives were not acceptable.

Moldova's government on Tuesday set July 29 as the date for fresh parliamentary elections, after a previous poll in April resulted in riots.

President Vladimir Voronin signed an executive order setting the date for the next contest, with political tensions remaining high in the former Soviet republic.