Iran presidential hopeful, 12, wants to move Israel to Hawaii

A 12-year-old Iranian schoolboy who hopes to unseat hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed that, if elected, he will resettle Israelis in Hawaii, The Scotsman reported on Friday.

"I will buy Hawaii, Obama's birthplace, from the United States and lease it to the Israelis who will go to live there - so that they don't kill children in Gaza," the Scottish daily quoted presidential candidate Kourosh Mozouni as saying.

The paper said Mozouni made the comments to reporters after he turned up to register holding his father's hand and waving a written campaign manifesto.

Mozouni also plans to ban computer games and boost the wages of Iranian fathers so that mothers do not have to work, the paper reported.

According to The Scotsman, dozens of eccentrics register to contest the presidential elections every four years, brightening the otherwise deadly serious event until they are inevitably banned from running.

Meanwhile, a reformist challenger to Ahmadinejad has criticized the hard-liner's denial of the Holocaust, saying it has served Israel's interests and pushed the country deeper into international isolation, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Moderate cleric Mahdi Karroubi is one of two reformist candidates hoping to unseat Ahmadinejad in the June 12 presidential election. The former parliament speaker has said he would pursue a foreign policy of detente with the West and wouldn't mind meeting President Barack Obama if it would help Iran's national interests.