Politics

Jessie Graham introduces a few of the people and scenes she encountered during her ten days in Tehran, Iran.

Sunni and Shitte tribal leaders North of Baghdad have signed an agreement with the U.S. military to allow them to police volatile cities and villages. The agreement was consented to by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. U.S. soliders are optimistic; Iraqis still have some reservations.

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Seventy percent of Iran is under 30, and this new generation has a different outlook on life than their parents did during the revolution. Jessie Graham for The World presents a view into the life of a secular young woman living in Iran.

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A U.S.-based human rights group is accusing the Ethiopian government of widespread abuses as it cracks down on a rebel group in its southeastern Ogaden region. Nick Wadhams reports from our East Africa bureau in Nairobi.

New York-based Human Rights Watch says Ethiopian troops have burned villages and shot civilians in its campaign against the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front.

"You can take off your headscarf now," Seema says with a wide smile as she welcomes me into her world and offers me some tea.

A friend of a friend who'd lived in Iran for a few months introduced me to Seema, a 24-year-old film editor. She's part of a crowd of twenty- and thirty-somethings I saw in Tehran's lively galleries and cafes. They're artistic, literary and highly educated young people from middle class families.

The clock is ticking. Less than 12 hours until I need to be on a plane out of Tehran. I've just been told politely by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance that I won't be getting the visa extension I'd expected. So I am on overdrive, trying to cram the last of my interviews into a sleepless night.

In those final hours, what I most want to know is how I can describe Iran's "red line." That's the slippery, ever-changing boundary that dictates what Iranians can and cannot say. I realize I have no idea what that line looks like. Is it wavy? Is it straight?

Iran is cracking down on people it suspects of being dissidents. For the past few months, authorities have rounded up students, activists and women who dress immodestly. Observers say the government is trying to divert attention from Iran's most pressing concern, its growing economic crisis.

The World's Jessie Graham reports from Tehran.

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The father of Iran's Islamic Revolution is still a central figure in the country's political life. His rhetoric can be still heard in the speeches of major Iranian leaders.

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Indigenous groups are threatened as Peru gears up for an energy boom.

GODE, Ethiopia — The town of Gode sits on an arid plain of brittle yellow scrub brush in Ethiopia's eastern Somali region. It looks like a place a John Wayne character might live and die.

And to be sure, people are dying here as violence from warring factions in the neighboring nation of Somalia spills over into Ethiopia.

"The worst are bullet injuries to the abdomen," said Solomon Muluneh, a 31-year-old Ethiopian general practitioner, one of only two doctors within 100 miles. "When you open the abdomen, you pray because it is a very difficult area."

Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry has released a statement telling the western press that it needs to be more objective and balanced. Unfortunately, this is fairly typical stuff.

Nicholas Wadhams, for the Pulitzer Center

The first of several stories Zoe and I are writing from our Ethiopia trip has moved at last, in The San Francisco Chronicle. You can find it here, with a sidebar here. More to come in the coming weeks. Please let us know what you think -- we're happy to respond to questions and comments.