More evidence both of electoral fraud and an internecine struggle among Iran's ruling clerics emerged this weekend, as security forces clashed with protesters in the streets of Tehran. On June 21, the government said it had arrested the daughter and other relatives of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. They were apparently later released, but their arrests appeared to be a clear warning from the hard-line establishment to a cleric who may be aligning himself with the opposition. AP reports that the night of the 21st, Tehran's streets fell mostly quiet for the first time since the disputed June 12 election—but defiant cries of "God is great!" echoed again from rooftops after dark.

Conspiranoids and freedom-haters of the left and right alike are rushing to betray the Iranian protest movement. On the supposed "left," the retro-Stalinist Workers World and its International Action Center as well as (disappointingly) Monthly Review and the World Socialist Website have weighed in for Ahmadinejad and dissed the protesters as dupes or pawns of US imperialism. How interesting to see these supposed "leftists" making common cause with right-wing cheerleaders for authoritarian regimes...

From the World Muslim Congress:

Obama, Hujurat and Islamic Calligraphy
President Obama quoted the verse 49:13 from Sura Hujurat in his speech in Cairo. "O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you." (Qur'aan 49:13).

Defying official threats and an intimidating police and paramilitary presence, protesters again took to the streets of Tehran June 20—although security forces this time prevented them from gathering in large numbers by massively occupying all public plazas and thoroughfares. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi appeared at a demonstration in south of the city and called for a general strike if he were to be arrested. "I am ready for martyrdom," he told supporters.

Ethiopian troops have reportedly crossed into Somalia after the transitional government there made a plea for foreign forces to help battle insurgents. Somalia's parliamentary speaker made the request June 20 after several days of heavy fighting in the north of the capital, Mogadishu. "The government is weakened by the rebel forces. We ask neighboring countries—including Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Yemen—to send troops to Somalia within 24 hours," Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur AKA "Madobe." Echoing remarks made by Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in recent days, Madobe says the government is fighting al-Qaeda, which has established bases in Somalia and is determined to take over the country.

Gunmen ambushed and killed 24 Algerian paramilitary police in the country's deadliest insurgent attack in nearly a year, the local newspaper Echorouk reported June 18. The militants attacked the previous evening with roadside bombs and rifles when the police passed in a convoy along a highway about 180 kilometers east of the capital. When they left the scene of the attack they took with them six police off-road vehicles as well as weapons and police uniforms.

The UK-based advocacy group Survival International has published an eyewitness account of the killings in the Peruvian Amazon that caused shockwaves around the world. The report contains dramatic photos by two Belgians, Marijke Deleu and Thomas Quirynen, who were caught up in the June 5 police attack on the roadblock in Bagua province and were themselves shot at.

Local residents in the Mexican village of Xico blocked roads for several days to prevent construction of a cellphone tower at the local pueblo of San Marcos. Following violent confrontations at the roadblocks between pro- and anti-antennae residents, Xico mayor Rogelio Soto Suárez called in elite anti-riot forces from the Veracruz state Auxiliary Police Institute (IPAX) to permit construction of the tower "by force." Activists say they petitioned town authorities to have the tower relocated further away from the pueblo and its schoolhouse, fearing the health impacts on their children. (Marcha news agency, Xalapa, June 16)