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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.

Thousands of riot police and Revolutionary Guards in Iran have surrounded Tehran University to prevent student demonstrations. Pro-government militia members armed with tear gas and firearms have been turned out to control the anticipated protest which is likely to attract a large amount of demonstrators on university campuses across the country. Police have been conducting ID checks on anyone entering the campus to prevent opposition activists from joining the students. Over the past week, the government sent threatening emails to many students, warning them not to participate in Monday's demonstrations. Some student-activist opponents of the government were out in Iran over the weekend, some shouting "Death to the Dictator" from Tehran's rooftops.

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.

Romania's opposition Social Democrat party says Sunday's presidential election was rigged and plans to contest the result. Official results showed incumbent President Traian Basescu with a winning margin of less than 1%. Earlier, exit polls had predicted victory for his Social Democrat rival, former Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana. Both candidates had claimed victory on Sunday night in what correspondents describe as a bitter contest. "We have proof of fraud," Social Democrat vice-president Liviu Dragnea was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. "The exit poll, the large number of annulled votes... massive electoral tourism and other things obviously force us to contest the result."

Two interesting media stories – one is the next installment of the case recounted here, about the allegations by a regional Georgian newspaper that one of its journalists had been blackmailed by officials from the Georgian special services and the subsequent launch of an internal investigation by the Interior Ministry. Now President Saakashvili has received a letter from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers and the World Editors Forum urging him to ensure thorough investigation and saying “We are seriously concerned that Georgian security services would seek to blackmail a journalist and interfere in editorial freedom. Such tactics are reminiscent of the Soviet-era KGB and have no place in a modern democracy”.

As the situation in Xinjiang calms down, people from across China discuss the cause of the unrest and the impact it might have on social stability in the future. Harry He, tradesman, XianI used to work for a travel company, so I've travelled to Xinjiang a lot. I was totally shocked when I heard what happened there. Uighurs believe this is their land, and it is. But Han Chinese have been settling down there since the Tang dynasty, when the Silk Route opened up new cities and new opportunities. Maybe the Chinese did rule Xinjiang with an iron first. But we are learning the lesson.Things have already got better for ethnic minorities. In some ways, they enjoy more privileges. For example I have to study really hard to get into university while it's easier for Uighurs, as there is a reserved quota for them regardless of how well they've performed.

SEOUL, South Korea — A group of activists and North Korean defectors urged an international tribunal Thursday to investigate alleged human rights abuses in the North and put its authoritarian leader Kim Jong Il on trial.The group is to fly to Hague next week to file its petition calling for an investigation at the International Criminal Court, the first such move on the North Korean rights issue, lead activist Ha Tae-keung told reporters in Seoul."Our aim is to get the arrest warrant on Kim Jong Il to be issued," Ha said. "North Korea's crimes against humanity are no less serious than Sudan's."In March, the court charged Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur — its first action against a sitting head of state.

MANILA — Two United Nations human rights officials urged the government of the Philippines on Thursday to pursue a thorough investigation of the election-related massacre in which 57 people were killed, and the police recommended that murder charges be filed against 11 more suspects.The massacre “must be seen as a watershed moment for the country,” said Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, and Frank La Rue, the special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, in a statement. The killings, they said, “demanded a more extensive reflection on the elite family-dominated manipulation of the political processes and the need to eliminate such practices.”

India is marking the 25th anniversary of the leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal. The victims have generally been left in a legal haze since the ill-fated night (Dec. 2, 1984) when a toxic-gas cloud spread across the central Indian city. Children put candles on the ground during a candle light vigil on eve of 25th anniversary disaster, in Bhopal, 2 Dec 2009"We are cautiously hopeful that the American courts will see that Union Carbide is playing a game here," New York-based lawyer Rajan Sharma said.

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.

It is a popular saying in Latin America that women always get what they want. In Sarayaku, Ecuador, women from the Kichwa tribe proved the saying to be true. When an oil company came onto their forest lands for oil exploration for future drilling, the women decided to stop them with a simple but flawless plan.Esperanza Martinez says on the blog Ecoportal [es], that women told their husbands that if they allowed the companies to work on their lands, they would have to find other women …on different lands. The Kichwas organized a united front against the oil company until it finally had to leave.This group of Kichwas live in province of Pastaza, on 140 thousand hectares in the Amazon, an area the Ecuadorian Ministry of Mines and Oil identified as Block 23. Several companies attempted to work there throughout the years, but they failed every time due to Kichwa’s opposition to drilling.

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.”

Greenpeace activists have boarded a boat carrying palm kernel animal feed from Indonesia, chaining themselves to the boat and its four cargo cranes off the coast of Tauranga. The boat, the East Ambition, is several kilometres off the Tauranga coast. The 12 activists are calling on Prime Minister John Key to stop imports of palm kernel, used for animal feed on New Zealand farms and sold by Fonterra's RD1.Greenpeace activist Jo McVeagh said the palm kernel crop encourages rain forest destruction and adds to climate change.She described Fonterra's involvement as "criminal".

NEW DELHI — Indian survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster on Thursday protested outside the offices of the US company blamed for the toxic leak ahead of the 25th anniversary of the notorious accident.Around 200 protesters gathered in front of the Dow Chemical building in a suburb of New Delhi, shouting slogans and waving placards demanding the firm pay for years of contamination and health problems.Thousands were killed instantly when gas leaked at a plant in Bhopal overnight on December 2-3, 1984 and tens of thousands have been killed since due to contamination, making it the world's worst industrial accident.