FORMER Iranian president Mohammad Khatami met Pope Benedict XVI for talks the Vatican hoped would help heal tensions left from the pontiff 's remarks on Islam and violence . . . but the Iranian said the wounds were still very deep.

Khatami, a reformist in power from 1997 to 2005, had been due to meet Benedict in October but the meeting was cancelled weeks after Benedict's speech in Germany about Islam sparked protests across the Muslim world.

The two men spoke yesterday about the importance of "a serene dialogue between cultures", the Vatican said, but before going into the talks, Khatami said "unfortunately the wounds of this world are very deep and they cannot be healed easily and a single meeting may not be enough", according to ANSA news agency.

HIKER'S FAMILY SUES

THE parents of a hiker who died of thirst during a survival course is suing the school and its guides, claiming negligence in a risky expedition in the hot Utah desert resulted in his death.

Dave Buschow, 29, of New Jersey, showed signs of extreme distress but was not offered emergency water by staff during the second day of a 28-day expedition in which 12 campers had few essentials. He dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from a pool of water in Garfield County.

Buschow was said to be desperate and delusional in 380C weather long before he collapsed. His parents, Patricia Herbert of River Vale, New Jersey, and Brad Buschow of Tafton, Pennsylvania, are suing Boulder Outdoor Survival School and four employees.

EUROPE 'JACKAL' TRIAL

JAILED Venezuelan terrorist, known as Carlos the Jackal, will stand trial again for his alleged role in deadly bombings he is said to have masterminded to win the release of a former girlfriend and an accomplice from French police custody.

France's top anti-terrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, ordered Ilich Sanchez Ramirez, two Germans and a Palestinian to face charges linked to four attacks in France that killed 12 people and injured at least 100 in 1982 and 1983, according to a judicial official.

Ramirez won international notoriety as the Cold War-era mastermind of deadly bombings, killings and hostage dramas, many in Western Europe.