Sudan 1st-Hand: Residents of Abyei Talk about the Fighting (Hamilton)

"I heard a plane way up high and then 'Doom!', the sound of a bomb hitting the ground," explained Mary Ajiang Kur, 37. "My neighbor called out: 'The Arabs are coming!'" recalled Kur, who said she grabbed her children and hid in the bushes.

Soon after, men arrived in her village, outside of Abyei town, the heart of a fertile, 4,000-square-mile area that straddles the provisional border between north and south Sudan.

"They came first on motorbikes and then [Toyota] Landcruisers with guns mounted on them," said Kur. She remembers many of the men were wearing uniforms but said some were wearing civilian clothes. "They started firing towards us. Bullets were landing beside us. We saw people being killed."

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Iran Snapshot: Haleh Sahabi, Another Martyr for the Movement

Haleh Sahabi and Neda Agha Soltan

As the day developed, it was reminiscent of a day almost two years ago.

News emerged, hours after the event, that a woman had died at a public gathering in Tehran. The details were confused at first, but we knew that she was Haleh Sahabi, a  women's right activist, and she had collapsed at the funeral of her father, long-time opposition figure Ezzatollah Sahabi. 

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Yemen, Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Touring the Destruction

2110 GMT: Claimed footage of a demonstration in the Harasta section of Damascus in Syria tonight:

2105 GMT: Riot police scatter protesters in Sitra in Bahrain:

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Iran Cartoon of the Day: RIP, Haleh and Ezzatollah Sahabi (Neyestani)

A cartoon by Maya Neyestani, commemorating the death of activist Haleh Sahabi (see today's LiveBlog), at the funeral of her father, opposition figure Ezzatollah Sahabi:

The Latest from Iran (1 June): A Silent Protest for the Election Anniversary?

Video of Haleh Sahabi with the body of her father, shortly before she died after a scuffle with security forces disrupting the funeral procession

2020 GMT: A Death at the Funeral. The interview of the opposition channel RASA TV with Haleh Sahabi, broadcast the night before her death, has been posted on YouTube.

2010 GMT: Arrests at the Funeral. Habibollah Peyman, a leader of the National-Religous Coalition, Hamid Ahrari, and Hamed Montazeri, grandson of the late Grand Ayatollah, were arrested at the funeral of opposition figure Ezzatollah Sahabi.

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Bahrain Snapshot: The Police Abuse of a Female Journalist (Reporters Without Borders)

Nazeeha SaeedA woman police officer mocked and insulted her. When Nazeeha ignored her, the policewoman grabbed her by the chin, held it hard, and slapped her with the other hand. “You must tell me the truth,” she screamed, continuing to slap her and then seizing her by the hair and throwing her to the ground. Four policewomen proceeded to slap, punch and kick her repeatedly. One of the women took her shoe and forced it into her mouth. “You are worth less than this shoe," she said.

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Egypt Feature: "The Struggle is Far from Over" (Worth)

Tahrir Square, Cairo, 27 May 2011Three months after the revolution, Egypt is in the agony of self-discovery. As other Arab revolutions founder or lapse into civil wars, Egypt has achieved far more than its young rebels ever hoped for. First, they forced out Mubarak in only 18 days. Then, with renewed protests in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, they rid themselves of his loyalists, including Ahmed Shafiq, the prime minister.

Nominally, Egypt is being ruled by a panel of military generals, who have governed in an uneasy dialogue with the revolution’s self-appointed leaders, making concession after concession to popular demands. But protesters continue to call for deeper reforms, and workers are striking throughout the country, demanding better pay and the removal of Mubarak-era bosses. Meanwhile, many Egyptians seem eager to carry the revolutionary energy of Tahrir Square into everyday life. “I was part of the regime — I used to take bribes,” intones a man in a new public-service TV ad campaign. “But Egypt is changing, and I am changing.” Sitting in traffic, I saw bumper stickers proclaiming: “As of today, I won’t run traffic lights,” and “I will change.” Posters have appeared on walls across Cairo urging Egyptians to stop littering, stop cheating, stop putting up with police abuse and sectarian slurs.

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Saudi Arabia Follow-Up: Manal al-Sharif Forced to Quit Women2Drive Campaign

Yesterday we reported that Manal al-Sharif, who not only defied Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving but also posted a YouTube video of herself behind the wheel to inspire others, had been released after nine days in detention.

Now it appears that the price for al-Sharif's freedom is her promise of self-imposed silence.

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Yemen, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Destroying the Protest Camp

Claimed footage of security forces firing on mass crowd in Taiz in Yemen today

1950 GMT: The Italian Foreign Ministry says it has temporarily shut the Embassy in Yemen and withdrawn all staff.

1940 GMT: Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has called for talks on reform involving all parties as the regime says it will lift a state of emergency on Wednesday.

Al-Khalifa said the discussions would begin on 1 July, according to the State news agency BNA: "The king called on everyone to take part...to push forward reform for development in all areas and to firmly anchor the bases of the reform process." Al-Khalifa had told journalists that the talks would be "comprehensive, serious, and without preconditions".

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Pakistan Feature: The Article that Led to Journalist Saleem Shahzad's Disappearance

UPDATE 1325 GMT: Pakistan's Geo News has posted that Saleem Shahzad's car has been found with an unidentified dead body and the journalist's identity.

Geo TV is now reporting that the http://www.twitter.com/AleemMaqbool">body is that of Shahzad and it bears marks of torture.

Sources on Twitter are reporting that Shahzad's brother-in-law has identified the body.

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