Handshakes at Pope's funeral stir controversy

Iran's president Mohammad Khatami has strongly denied shaking hands with Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The official Iranian news agency quoted Khatami as saying statements by Katsav that he had shaken hands with both Khatami and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad at the Pope's funeral in Rome were wrong. Katsav also claimed that he had conversed with Khatami in Farsi, both presidents coming from the same hometown in Iran. The Syrian official news agency has confirmed that Assad and Katsav did shake hands, but dismissed the handshake as a mere formality that had no political significance. Iran refuses to recognize Israel, and Israel and Syria are officially at war. In Britain, a handshake during the ceremony between Robert Mugabe, authoritarian ruler of the African state of Zimbabwe, and Britain's Prince Charles caused a row that threatened to overshadow Charles' wedding with Camilla Parker-Bowles on Saturday. Mugabe and his regime are outlawed by the European Union for human rights abuses, but the Zimbabwean president was able to attend the funeral as the Vatican is not a member of the EU.