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In the past week, sixteen students from Isfehan Industrial University have been summoned to appear before the Disciplinary Committee in the Ministry of Education. The students stood before the Committee and, in their own defense, presented supporting documents.  The Committee has not issued any ruling on the students’ cases and has postponed its decision to next week. Readers are reminded that, in the meantime, these students have not been allowed to register for courses during the current school year, and are not even allowed to enter the university’s campus.

Honduras's interim leaders suspended key civil liberties last night in response to "calls for insurrection" by ousted president Manuel Zelaya, empowering police and soldiers to break up "unauthorised" public meetings, arrest people without warrants and restrict the news media.The announcement came just hours after Zelaya called on supporters to stage mass marches today to mark the three-month anniversary of the 28 June coup that ousted him. Zelaya described the marches as "the final offensive" against the interim government.Zelaya, who surprised the world when he sneaked back into the country last Monday and holed up in the Brazilian embassy, is demanding he be reinstated to office, and has said that the government of interim president Roberto Micheletti "has to fall".

Students in Iran have demonstrated against the government at Tehran University on the first day of the new academic year.Footage posted on websites showed several hundred people chanting slogans against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Eyewitnesses said students were not allowed into an official ceremony attended by a government minister to mark the start of term.

Earlier this year, I was shown around Jayyous by Mohammad Othman, Youth Coordinator of the Stop the Wall campaign, a nonviolent grassroots movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. His community, like many others, has been hit hard by Israel’s Separation Wall, their very livelihoods threatened by Israel’s drive to carry out a land grab under the claim of security.Yesterday, Othman was detained and arrested by Israeli soldiers as he attempted to cross back into the West Bank from Jordan, returning from a trip to Norway. He will apparently meet with his lawyer tomorrow, and there is a court appearance scheduled for Tuesday next week.

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MINSK, BELARUS — Three male actors enter a stark, white room in a ramshackle house on the outskirts of this former Soviet city and place a large suitcase on the black, lacquered floor.Two actors of the Belarus Free Theater performing "Discover Love" in Washington D.C. on September 16. Each picks up an instrument, and they launch into a lively Belarussian folk tune. From the suitcase springs a woman in a traditional costume, a flowered garland on her head. Yipping and chirping, she kicks into a sprightly dance. On the wall a message in Belarussian is projected: “About 20,000 young women in Belarus need employment.”

New Delhi (Mizzima) – The US embassy in Rangoon has officially protested against the alleged  maltreatment of detained American citizen, Kyaw Zaw Lwin (alias) Nyi Nyi Aung, as the Burmese junta on Thursday publicly announced his arrest. Drake Weisert, Assistant Public Affairs Officer, at the US embassy in Rangoon told Mizzima that Kyaw Zaw Lwin made claims that he had been mistreated when the US consular officer visited him in Insein prison in Rangoon on Sunday. “The U.S. Embassy has submitted an official message to the Government of Burma protesting the alleged mistreatment of an imprisoned American citizen,” Weisert said.

NEW YORK—Lawyers and Chinese civil rights activists are planning to lodge formal complaints with the United Nations and the Hong Kong government over the detention of former 1989 student democracy activist Zhou Yongjun on charges of “economic fraud” after he tried to visit his ailing father in 2008.A number of lawyers and civil rights activists said they were planning to lodge formal complaints over Zhou’s detention, especially as it took place in Hong Kong, where freedom of speech and the rule of law were promised protection by Beijing.“If the Hong Kong authorities can just hand him over to China, then where are Hong Kong’s freedoms?” New York-based lawyer Li Jinjin said.

BANGKOK, Sep 23 (IPS) - Having released more than 7,000 prisoners in the last few days as part of the preparations for next year's planned polls, Burma's military rulers are up to their old tricks, according to Burmese activists and human rights groups. Most of those released are petty criminals, although around 200 political prisoners are among the freed. Many analysts believe these releases are intended to increase the credibility of next year's multi-party elections – the first in 20 years. But activists accuse the junta of releasing political prisoners to deflect international pressure, especially at the United Nations, where the annual General Assembly got underway this week. Burma usually comes under intense scrutiny during this meeting.

Dharamsala, September 23 – The Dag Hammerskjold Plaza opposite the United Nations building in New York was filled with angry protesters yesterday as Chinese president Hu Jintao arrived to deliver his first address at the United Nations on climate change. Tibetans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Burmese, and Falun Dafa followers voiced their angst in unison against the Chinese president who they accused of oppressing thousands of innocent peoples. Meanwhile, the Tibetan Youth Congress, the largest pro-independence group of the Tibetan diaspora, condemned the United Nations for kowtowing to China by inviting Hu, who it accused of carrying out “gross violation of human rights in Tibet, East Turkestan and China”. Hu Jintao’s previous commitments of promoting and safeguarding world peace and seeking a harmonious society are no more than blatant lies, it said. While reiterating its demand for complete independence for Tibet the Tibetan Youth Congress appealed to the UN and the world leaders to raise the issue of Tibet through these UN Summits with the leaders of People’s Republic of China.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, in a rare interview Thursday, depicted himself as an African hero battling imperialism and foreign attempts to oust him rather than the widespread perception of a dictator clinging to power at the expense of the welfare of his people and country. The 85-year-old Mugabe, the only leader of Zimbabwe since it became independent from Britain in 1980, rejected repeated assertions by CNN's Christiane Amanpour that his policies have driven the nation once known as Africa's breadbasket to virtual economic collapse.Instead, Mugabe accused Britain and the United States of seeking to oust him by imposing economic sanctions, the effects of which he said were worsened by years of drought.

Activists have launched a campaign to have the headquarters of a top African human rights body moved from the Gambia after the country's president reportedly threatened to kill human rights defenders.The online Gambian news service, Freedom Newspaper, reported this week that President Yahya Jammeh had said in a television broadcast that he would kill "anyone who wants to destablise this country."The newspaper said Jammeh's "exact words" in a television broadcast had been: "If you think that you can collaborate with so-called human rights defenders, and get away with it, you must be living in a dream world. I will kill you, and nothing will come out of it.

PITTSBURGH Police fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke at marchers protesting the Group of 20 summit Thursday after anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling trash bins and throwing rocks.The march turned chaotic at just about the time that President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived for a meeting with leaders of the world's major economies.The clashes began after hundreds of protesters, many advocating against capitalism, tried to march from an outlying neighborhood toward the convention center where the summit is being held. The protesters banged on drums and chanted "Ain't no power like the power of the people, 'cause the power of the people don't stop."

Iranian universities have reopened against a backdrop of simmering postelection dispute that has authorities fearing new protests and many students expecting the worst. Officials are concerned that the new academic year will allow disgruntled youths to stoke public anger over the fiercely contested reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Student leaders are meanwhile nervous as a result of arrests, bans, and efforts that appeared aimed at intimidating potential malcontents whose sympathies are thought to lie with the political opposition that's been shut out since the June 12 election. One of the traditional hotbeds of student unrest, Tehran University, did not reopen, reportedly due to testing procedures that preempted the start of new classes.

Reporting from Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras -- For a few hours Wednesday, Honduras' political drama gave way to more important matters -- like buying groceries and filling gas tanks.Streets in the capital, Tegucigalpa, were clogged with frantic shoppers after the country's interim rulers briefly lifted a nationwide curfew to let residents restock shelves. Meanwhile, the deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, remained hunkered in a foreign embassy.It was the first chance for residents to get out since Monday, when Zelaya sneaked back into Honduras and the de facto government abruptly imposed the shutdown. The curfew was to resume later Wednesday."I haven't had food at home for three days because the curfew caught us by surprise. I have to get milk for my three children," said Mariega Garcia, a 40-year-old administrator.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Press freedom groups condemn Venezuela's recent shutdown of radio stations as part of a broader strategy by President Hugo Chavez to progressively clamp down on the private news media — and they want to put a stop to it.Newspaper executives who lead the Miami-based Inter American Press Association say Venezuela will be at the top of their list as they gather in Caracas for an emergency forum Friday to discuss freedom of expression in the Americas.Chavez's government forced 32 radio stations and two small television stations off the air last month, saying some owners had failed to renew their broadcast licenses while other licenses were no longer valid because they had been granted long ago to owners who are now dead.

Buenos Aires, Argentina - On September 3, 2009, three aging, retired officials from Argentina's army entered a federal courthouse in Rosario, Argentina. The men - Pascual Guerrieri, Jorge Alberto Fariña and Juan Daniel Amelong - have been charged with the kidnapping, forced disappearance and torture of 29 people, and the murder of 17 of them during Argentina's last dictatorship. The case in Rosario is the latest in a tidal wave of cases to reach a courthouse against the dictatorships of the Southern Cone from a generation ago. Until several years ago, less than a dozen officials were ever convicted for the atrocities committed by Latin America's military governments in the 1970s. Most of them were eventually pardoned. But within the last three years - particularly the last year - justice has sped up, including dozens of convictions and hundreds of indictments.

WASHINGTON — Wednesday was the 50th day of their hunger strike, but Hamid Goudarzi, 26, and his fellow Iranian-immigrant protesters here swore they would never give up.Two Iranian immigrants, Reza Haghelahi, left, and Khalil Parsae, are part of a hunger strike outside the White House. “I’m getting weaker every day,” said Mr. Goudarzi, who gave up his job in San Antonio to join the protest. “But I’m here to the end.”He is among two dozen hunger strikers encamped a stone’s throw from the White House to protest the deaths in Iraq of at least six members of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, an exile group based in Iraq and committed to the overthrow of the Islamic revolutionary government in Tehran. Similar sympathy strikes are under way in Ottawa, London, Berlin, Stockholm and The Hague.

"Crude" sounds like the standard "this is an outrage" environmental degradation documentary, the latest in a line that includes "An Inconvenient Truth" and films about the death of the ocean, the evaporation of water, the murder of dolphins, even the disintegration of dirt. "Crude" fits that bill, but it is something considerably more interesting as well.The outrage in question is the subject of a class-action suit filed by 30,000 citizens of Ecuador against Chevron, the world's fifth-largest corporation, alleging that 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater were dumped into the Amazon between 1972 and 1990, fatally poisoning the land and water and sickening inhabitants. The lawsuit, with a potential cost to Chevron of $27 billion, has been going on for so long, 16 years and counting, that the original American oil company in Ecuador, Texaco, was acquired by Chevron and no longer exists.

HAVANA, CUBA More than half a million Cubans gathered in Havana on Sunday for a concert featuring Miami-based singer Juanes, a gig welcomed by US President Barack Obama, but criticized by Cuban exiles.Hundreds of thousands of parasol-waving fans braced blistering heat in the capital's storied Revolution Square, with merriment belying the political undertones that the concert has produced.Miami's Cuban exile community has criticized the performance, saying it will legitimize the island's communist regime, and Colombian-born singer Juanes received death threats ahead of the "Peace without Borders" concert.

Reporting from Cairo and Tehran - Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attempted to unify Iranians on Sunday by blaming foreign media for "poisoning the atmosphere" and urged his nation to resist the "killer cancer" of an Israel backed by Western powers.Delivering a sermon at Tehran University before a crowd that included President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and opposition cleric Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khamenei said the West had failed in its attempts to undermine the government with large opposition protests during countrywide anti-Israel rallies Friday. "It showed that their [Western politicians'] tricks, spending money and political evilness do not influence the Iranian nation," said Khamenei, who was greeted with chants of "Leader, we offer our blood to you."