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The internet has galvanised dissidents, but the key events that fuelled the uprising happened offline Middle-class, urban, web-savvy – the archetypal media image of the young protesters who have shaken Egypt's dictatorship this week captures only part of the reality.This generation of dissidents, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the three-decade rule of President Hosni Mubarak, have rejected the moribund landscape of formal politics that has ensnared many of their liberal elders since Nasser's 1952 revolution.

In the United States, the first week of October passed by without much fanfare. However, for about 10 million Serbian citizens, it was a time to celebrate. This past week was the tenth anniversary of the Serbian people’s victory over communist tyrant Slobodan Milosevic and of the moment the country joined the ranks of the world’s newest democracies.Milosevic was brought down not by bombs, bullets, or a military coup, nor was he even brought down the ballot, although the presidential election of Kostunica was the lynchpin. Milsoevic was forced out of power in a massive display of nonviolent civil resistance that represented the first truly democratic transition of the 21st century.

Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) -- The final results from Ukraine's presidential election on Wednesday showed former Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich winning a close race, but an official declaration of a victor was still to come.Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has refused to concede defeat and plans to demand a recount in some districts, officials from her party, Bloc Tymoshenko, said Tuesday.The tally from the Central Election Commission from Sunday's runoff showed Yanukovich holding 48.95 percent of the vote, and Tymoshenko claiming 45.47 percent. Nearly seven in 10 registered voters showed up at the polls.

A leading Iranian human rights activist and journalist was arrested Wednesday, activists said. Kaveh Ghasemi Kermanshahi was taken by seven security agents who searched his home and took personal belongings including his computer, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said in a statement.It is not clear where he is being held."Kermanshahi is one of the most important sources of objective human rights information and analysis in Iran, and one of the few still courageously working to document, in a scientific way, the deprivation of human rights there," said ICHRI representative Hadi Ghaemi from New York.

Ahead of a planned opposition rally on Monday, Iran tightened security and arrested over 20 mothers who were mourning children killed in the unrest that has broken out since the disputed June 12 elections.The mothers took part in an antigovernment protest in Leleh Park in central Tehran every Saturday since the death in June of Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, whose shooting became a symbol of the government’s violent repression. The rally had been attacked by the police before, but Saturday was the first time the mothers were arrested. An opposition Web site reported that the protest was broken up by the police and many demonstrators were taken away. The BBC Persian service quoted a witness who said 29 women were arrested, some of whom were later released. But at least 21 remained in jail, the BBC said.

TEHRAN -- Iranian security forces and paramilitary groups broke up anti-government demonstrations in central Tehran on Monday, using clubs, tear gas and electric batons to disperse crowds outside the University of Tehran, witnesses said. Authorities blocked main roads into the city center and arrested dozens of demonstrators who sought to turn Iran's annual "Student Day" rallies into the latest in a series of protests against the government that began about six months ago. Officials had declared such demonstrations illegal and threatened to meet them with force. Despite the warnings, thousands of demonstrators tried to join students at sealed-off campuses of Tehran's main universities. Deployed to head them off were hundreds of riot police, Revolutionary Guard Corps troops and members of the Basij, a pro-government militia.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian security forces fired warning shots in Tehran on Monday and beat opposition protesters among thousands seeking to renew their challenge to the government six months after a disputed election, witnesses said.The security forces fired shots into the air as they clashed with supporters of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi at a state rally marking the killing of three students under the former Shah, the reformist website Mowjcamp said."Security forces are beating demonstrators, men and women. Some of them are injured and bleeding," said one witness in Tehran's central Haft-e Tir square.The June 12 presidential election, which secured President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, sparked Iran's worst unrest since the Islamic revolution three decades ago and exposed deep divisions in the establishment. Authorities deny allegations of vote-rigging.

Iranians are marking University Student Day, traditionally an anti-US event that commemorates the killing of three students in 1953. Opposition supporters are expected to try to hijack official protests by chanting their own anti-government slogans.Olivia Cornes navigates some of the opposition chants heard in Iran since June's disputed presidential elections, with the help of BBCPersian.com and protesters themselves.The waves of street chanting among anti-regime protesters are spontaneous but many are not new. Slogans that Iranians used 30 years ago to call for an end to the Shah's regime are now thrown back at the Islamic regime which replaced it.

Tens of thousands of people, government protesters and supporters alike, demonstrated Saturday in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua."The only way for the government to change, as it has been shown in all these years, is for the people to go to the streets," said Dora Maria Tellez, who was a main figure in President Daniel Ortega's government during the 1980s but who now leads an opposition party."There is no other way," she said at the protests, which appeared to be peaceful. It was not immediately clear how many of the masses were demonstrating against the government and how many had gathered to support it.

Failed Elections in Honduras: Peaceful Resistance Boycotted Coup efforts while Repression causes one Dead and Dozens Tortured and Detained A peaceful resistance movement in Honduras successfully boycotted today's marred presidential elections. Following a plan of civil disobedience, most Honduran citizens didn't vote today as a sign of protest against the coup government of Roberto Micheletti. Since the coup d'etat carried on June 28 this year, the opposition in Honduras have organized what is known as the National Front of Peaceful Resistance. Today they organized several acts of disobedience to boycott the elections that will not be recognized by most countries in the Americas -except the United States- and which only included candidates of the officialism, and ignored the popular demand for a ballot that supported a Constitution reform.

While most international news organizations took obedient dictation of the Honduras coup regime's claims of more than 62 percent voter participation in the November 29 "elections," authentic journalist Jesse Freeston did what real reporters are supposed to do: He went directly to the source, asked questions, took notes, and videotaped the evidence.Freeston today publishes this bombshell report, above, on The Real News that documents definitively that Honduras electoral officials knowingly lied about their claims of more than 60 percent voter turnout. The hard results in possession of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in its Spanish initials) demonstrate only 49.2 percent turnout: That means that a majority - more than 50 percent - of Honduran citizens abstained in the "elections" that the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat had called unfair, unfree and placed under boycott.

Within hours of the polls closing the celebrations began. Cavalcades of honking cars raced up and down Boulevard Morazan. The Hotel Maya filled with cheering people in blue T-shirts. The media fell into paroxysms of delight.A wealthy rancher named Porfirio Lobo had just won Honduras's presidential election, heralding a "democratic fiesta". By dawn today the revellers were heading home, perhaps stopping for breakfast at one of Tegucigalpa's myriad Pizza Huts, Burger Kings and Wendy's."This is a wonderful day. The country has regained its equilibrium," beamed Ana Gomez, 29. After days of grey skies even the tropical sunshine returned.

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters held a major rally on Friday evening in Tirana, seeking a partial recount of the ballots cast during the 28 June parliamentary elections.The rally, which was organised by the Socialists headed by Tirana's mayor Edi Rama was also supported by smaller opposition parties from the left and right, which accuse the government of Prime Minister Sali Berisha of electoral fraud.The rally. which was extended into a three day marathon by a few hundred opposition supporters and deputies who camped out in front of Berisha's office, closed on Sunday afternoon.Speaking at the closing rally opposition leader Edi Rama described the protest as the birth of a new political movement, while giving the government an ultimatum to accept his party's request for a partial recount.

The situation in Guinea remains alarming. Despite the negotiations in Ouagadougou and the build up of regional and international pressures, the junta seems like it would rather lead the country into a civil war than give up power. . The Ouagadougou negotiations enter a critical phase today; their agenda should be limited to the departure of the junta. A “National Unity Government” that allows the current military regime to stay in power would only increase the risks for the region. To prevent a catastrophe, ECOWAS and the United Nations should start preparing for an eventual military intervention.Since Dadis Camara took power in December 2008, political tensions have constantly increased. They reached the point of no return on 28 September, when security forces executed demonstrators, killing 160 people and injuring 1700. Testimonies about the organization of the killings point towards a premeditated massacre: the military units that carried it out  were already in position  while officers issued  orders at the stadium Since that day, security forces have led a terror campaign, using rape and torture as tools of repression.

TEGICUGALPA, HONDURAS, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009: Nine days before the Honduran elections are scheduled to take place, Channel 36, Cholusat Sur, has been taken off the air once again. A parallel signal has been transmitting over the station. Initially airing pornography, now the same movie has been on repeat for the second day in a row. This new attack on the press comes the morning after Micheletti announced that he would be leaving the Presidency ‘provisionally’ from November 25 until December 2 for the country “to concentrate on the electoral process and not on the political crisis.”Micheletti’s announcement has been “welcomed” by the US State Department which currently along with Panama and Colombia are the only countries recognizing the elections. Micheletti added that he would return if there were threats to security. Officially the armed forces have been turned over to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) 30 days prior to the elections. The National Front Against the Coup D’état in an announcement called the “absence” of Micheletti’s “dictatorship…only a maneuver to hide the totalitarian role of the de facto regime and the armed forces that have been applied to an illegitimate, illegal and fraudulent electoral process.”

The U.S. State Department has told Cuba it deplores last week's ``assault'' on blogger Yoani Sánchez, one of the toughest of several expressions of support for the Havana writer.Sánchez and fellow blogger Orlando Luis Pardo said they were beaten Friday by presumed state security agents to keep them away from a ``march against violence.'' Blogger Claudia Cadelo and another woman were detained in the incident, but without violence.``The U.S. government strongly deplores the assault,'' said a State Department statement issued late Monday. ``We have expressed to the Cuban government our deep concern . . . and we are following up with inquiries to [the three bloggers] . . . regarding their personal well-being and access to medical care.''

The history of Bertha Oliva de Nativi is the history of Honduras.  If the storyline of the past one hundred years of this continent has been ‘so few with so much, and so many with so little’, then Bertha has been the fearless protagonist racing to rewrite the chapters that will hence come.   In 1982 Berta’s husband, Professor Tomas Nativi disappeared.  One of hundreds of Hondurans and tens of thousands of Central Americans to lose their lives to state sanctioned violence, Tomas and all of those who have disappeared remain the most terrifying and silencing bootprint of the military regimes of the 1980’s.  The stories are all too common: "they came to our door in the middle of the night" or "he just never came home ever again."  Their families must find ways to grieve, to cope, and to say goodbye to their loved ones without the benefit of closure or resolution.  Some, however, began to demand answers.

Of the many lessons to be learned from the Honduran political crisis, perhaps the most important one for would-be deal brokers is that if you get involved, prepare to stay involved.The Organisation of American States, Costa Rican, Brazilian, Chilean and, most recently, US negotiators at even the highest levels have thrown up their hands in dismay at the intransigence on display. The agreement at the end of last month, which was praised by the Obama administration as a landmark in inter-American diplomacy, is now yet another in a line of broken ones.If the US wants its stamp on this quagmire to be any different from those of the other scorned negotiators, it will send its team back down to Honduras and do all it can to get the broken deal back on track.

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Shouts of "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," a sign of continuing protest in Iran, could be heard Tuesday night in north and west Tehran, along with shouts of "death to dictator."In addition, pictures and videos were posted online of a reported protest at the University of Kashan, south of the capital city.The shouts were heard and reports came a day after the Islamic republic warned reformists against taking to the streets in protest, as the 30th anniversary of the Iranian hostage crisis approaches.

No mercy for those accused of trying to topple the Islamic Republic.Britain on Thursday protested a four-year jail sentence apparently imposed on one of its senior employees at its embassy in Tehran accused of spying and fomenting violence. Hossein Rassam, 44, who served as chief political analyst at the British Embassy in Tehran was sentenced in a closed courtroom earlier this week, according to The Times of London. British authorities were informed of the sentence Tuesday and have summoned the Iranian ambassador while Britain’s ambassador to Iran has filed a complaint with Iranian authorities. The outcome of the trial has yet to be officially announced.