Former Kosova prime minister Agim Ceku was reportedly released June 25, two days after he was arrested in Bulgaria on an international war crimes warrant—although he is being asked not to leave Bulgaria. Ceku, wanted by Serbia for war crimes charges, was intercepted on the Bulgarian-Macedonian border following an Interpol "red notice." As a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Ceku is accused of command responsibility for the deaths of 669 Serbs and 18 other non-Albanians. A court in Serbia has sentenced him to 20 years in prison in absentia. (AFP, June 25; Balkan Insight, June 24)

Having already weighed in for Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed elections, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said June 24 he is "completely sure" Ahmadinejad fairly won re-election, and that the protests in Tehran follow a pattern seen in other countries, where "behind it is the CIA and the imperial hand of European countries and the United States." (AP) In response, Venezuela's Revolutionary Marxist Current has issued a statement expressing solidarity with the Iranian protesters.

Bloody clashes were reported from Tehran June 24 as Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he would not yield to pressure over the disputed election. The renewed confrontation took place in Baharestan Square, near parliament, where hundreds of protesters faced off against several thousand riot police and other security personnel.

Kyrgyzstan has struck a deal with the US to keep open the Pentagon's Manas for a sum of $180 million. Washington had been haggling to keep the base open since February, when the Kyrgyz government announced its closure after securing pledges of $2 billion in aid and credit from Russia. Now, an unnamed diplomatic source has told Reuters that Moscow brokered the new Manas deal with Washington. A Kremlin official accompanying Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Egypt told the news agency: "Kyrgyzstan agreed its decision with Russia. We support all steps aimed at stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan."

The militant cleric Sufi Mohammed, who brokered the failed Swat Valley peace deal, has been arrested and transferred to a secret "safehouse" in Peshawar, together with his wife, an unnamed official told Italy's AKI news service. The government is keeping the arrests secret until it decides what the cleric's fate will be, the source, who added: "This could be the beginning of a new round of a dialogue as the military operation so far failed to get the government any place."

David Montero blogs for the Christian Science Monitor June 24 that "as in Pakistan, many are looking to armed tribes in Somalia who adhere to Sufism—a mystical, moderate interpretation of Islam—as the best chance for peace." The post, entitled "Is promoting Sufi Islam the best chance for peace in Somalia?", quotes a Somali writer—identifying himself only as Muthuma—who writes on the Bartamaha news portal that (as we've noted) a "new axis" of conflict is emerging in Somalia, in which fighters are battling one another along religious lines:

A sharia court run by Somalia's Shabab insurgents in Mogadishu sentenced four teenagers to each have a hand and a leg amputated as punishment for robbery June 22. A sharia judge in an insurgent-controlled area of the capital said the defendants had "robbed mobile phones and people's belongings." The Shabab have instated a strict interpretation of Islamic law in territory they control, and have carried out stonings, floggings and amputations before. Amnesty International condemned the sentence, saying the defendants had no lawyer and had not been allowed to appeal. (Reuters, June 22)

A suicide bomber severely wounded Yunus Bek Yevkurov, president of Russia's volatile southern republic of Ingushetia—an assassination attempt that undermines the Kremlin's claim that it has brought stability to the restive North Caucasus. A car rigged with TNT exploded as the presidential convoy traveled outside the regional capital, Nazran. The blast tore Yevkurov's armored sedan to pieces and killed two of his bodyguards. Yevkurov was the third high official to be wounded or killed in the last three weeks in the North Caucasus region. (AP, June 22)