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It was a signal moment in Pakistan’s political development: A huge demonstration forced the restoration of a dismissed chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, a symbol of democracy and the rule of law. The army did not stage a coup, but insisted that the government accept a compromise.

President Zardari has been severely weakened by his efforts to squelch a national protest and faces defections from the usually cohesive Pakistan Peoples Party. His opponent, Mr. Sharif, emerged as a leader in waiting, but with no clear path to power.

Mr. Sharif, often held in suspicion in Washington because of his leaning toward Islamic conservatives, was more cooperative than had been thought, some United States officials suggested. In Washington, there was an awareness that Mr. Sharif’s reputation from the Bush administration of being too close to the Islamists might be overdrawn, and that his relationships with some of the Islamic parties and with Saudi Arabia could be useful, said a foreign policy expert familiar with the thinking of the Obama administration on Pakistan.

I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I would like to speak clearly to Iran's leaders.  We have serious differences that have grown over time.  My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community.  This process will not be advanced by threats.  We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.

he United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations.  You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization.  And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.

Unusually for an Egyptian secret service chief, General Omar Suleiman has come into the public view in recent years - mostly for his efforts to mediate between Palestinian factions and Israel. Suleiman, who has headed the Egyptian intelligence service since the early 1990s, took up his mediating role in 2000, following the outbreak of the second intifada. He had some success negotiating a brief ceasefire in June 2003.

Sulieman's position as head of the Arab world's most significant intelligence agency and his closeness to Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, gave rise to speculation that he could contend with Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, for the position of Egypt's next ruler.

Both Mubarak and Suleimen survived an assassination attempt in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, where they were due to attend an African summit in June 1995.

Mr. Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from more hard-core elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a strategy that many credit as much as the increase of American forces with turning the war around in the last two years. “There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region,

Asked if the United States was winning in Afghanistan, a war he effectively adopted as his own last month by ordering an additional 17,000 troops sent there, Mr. Obama replied flatly, “No.”

Mr. Obama said on the campaign trail last year that the possibility of breaking away some elements of the Taliban “should be explored,

Iran's Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said Monday that journalist Roxana Saberi's sentence was commuted as a gesture of "Islamic mercy" because she expressed regret and cooperated with authorities.

Some Iranian sources also tell CNN her release is a gesture to President Obama who publicly insisted Saberi had not been spying for the United States.

When she was first arrested earlier this year, Saberi told her father she had been caught buying wine, illegal in Islamic Iran. The Iranian Foreign Ministry then said she had been working without a valid journalist permit, and finally in a one-day closed door trial, she was accused, and convicted of spying for the United States. "Without press credentials and under the name of being a reporter, she was carrying out espionage activities," Hassan Haddad, a deputy public prosecutor, told the Iranian Students News Agency on April 9. Her sentence -- eight years in Iran's notorious Evin Prison.

Kadivar: This Iranian form of theocracy has failed. The rights of the Iranian peoples are trampled upon and my homeland is heading towards a military dictatorship. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad behaves like an Iranian Taliban. The supreme leader, Mr. Ali Khamenei, has tied his fate to that of Ahmadinejad, a great moral, but also political mistake.

Kadivar: The people call "Allahu Akbar" from the rooftops. They carry signs asking "Where has my vote gone?" The protesters don't want to rebel against everything, but they do want justice and they do want fair elections. He who refuses those demands risks a civil war.

Kadivar: I admit that some young people are oriented towards the West. But one should not give too much weight to that. The majority of my compatriots would not want a complete separation of state and religion. Neither would I. Iran is a country with Islamic traditions and values. More than 90 percent of our citizens are Muslims.

In the wake of mass street protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's relection, meanwhile, Iran's Basij militia has called for the defeated opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi to be prosecuted. The semi-official Fars news agency said the militia - a volunteer force of Islamic government loyalists - had accused Mr Mousavi of nine offences, including propaganda against the state, and complicity in disrupting national security. It is our historic responsibility to continue our complaint and make efforts not to give up the rights of the people Mir Hossein MousaviIranian presidential candidate Iran frees five from UK embassy In a letter to the chief prosecutor, the militia said Mr Mousavi had been involved in the street protests, in which about 17 protesters and a number of militia members were killed.

In the wake of mass street protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's relection, meanwhile, Iran's Basij militia has called for the defeated opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi to be prosecuted. The semi-official Fars news agency said the militia - a volunteer force of Islamic government loyalists - had accused Mr Mousavi of nine offences, including propaganda against the state, and complicity in disrupting national security.

The other side of Iran's economy belongs to the Islamic foundations, which account for 10% to 20% of the nation's GDP--$115 billion last year. Known as bonyads, the best-known of these outfits were established from seized property and enterprises by order of Ayatollah Khomeini in the first weeks of his regime. Their mission was to redistribute to the impoverished masses the "illegitimate" wealth accumulated before the revolution by "apostates" and "blood-sucking capitalists." And, for a decade or so, the foundations shelled out money to build low-income housing and health clinics. But since Khomeini's death in 1989 they have increasingly forsaken their social welfare functions for straightforward commercial activities.

Until recently they were exempt from taxes, import duties and most government regulation. They had access to subsidized foreign currency and low-interest loans from state-owned banks. And they were not accountable to the Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance or any other government institution. Formally, they are under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Leader; effectively, they operate without any oversight at all, answerable only to Allah.

According to Shiite Muslim tradition, devout businessmen are expected to donate 20% of profits to their local mosques, which use the money to help the poor. By contrast, many bonyads seem like straightforward rackets, extorting money from entrepreneurs. Besides the biggest national outfits, almost every Iranian town has its own bonyad, affiliated with local mullahs. "Many small businessmen complain that as soon as you start to make some money, the leading mullah will come to you and ask for a contribution to his local charity," says an opposition economist, who declines to give his name. "If you refuse, you will be accused of not being a good Muslim. Some witnesses will turn up to testify that they heard you insult the Prophet Mohammad, and you will be thrown in jail." The Cosa Nostra meets fundamentalism.

But analysts said the crackdown now taking place across Iran suggested that Mr. Ahmadinejad had succeeded in creating a pervasive network of important officials in the military, security agencies, and major media outlets, a new elite made especially formidable by support from one important constituent, Iran’s supreme leader himself.

Mr. Ahmadinejad has filled crucial ministries and other top posts with close friends and allies who have spread ideological and operational support for him nationwide. These analysts estimate that he has replaced 10,000 government employees to cement his loyalists through the bureaucracies, so that his allies run the organizations responsible for both the contested election returns and the official organs that have endorsed them.

There is a pattern to the way Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has selected allies throughout his career, said Said A. Arjomand, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook who has just finished a book analyzing the rule of the supreme leader. The ayatollah has repeatedly surrounded himself with men lacking an apparent social or political base of their own, men who would be dependent on him, Mr. Arjomand said.

Mousavi, 67, who was Iran's prime minister during the 1980s, has a reputation for being incorrupt. He has surprised analysts by emerging as a serious challenger to Ahmadinejad and is thought likely to coast to victory in Tehran, while the incumbent is strong in the countryside and small towns.

The contrast between the camps could not have been starker. Mousavi supporters are predominantly young and urbane. Many of the young women in the chain would be accused by conservatives of wearing "bad hijab" – meaning their compulsory head covering is only loosely attached.

"Ahmadinejad has done nothing good for our country," said Neda Ahmadi, 24, wearing blue eye make-up and a tight-fitting jacket and jeans beneath her hijab. "Musawi can improve Iran's relations with other countries and focus on our own people's needs."But Lida, another 24-year-old woman, who was at the president's rally, called him "a truthful man who leads a simple life". Iran she said, "has not been isolated but is showing itself as it wants other countries to see it".

In opening a bold overture to the Islamic world on Thursday, President Obama confronted frictions between Muslims and the West, but he reserved some of his bluntest words for Israel, as he expressed sympathy for the Palestinians and what he called the “daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.”

While Mr. Obama emphasized that America’s bond with Israel was “unbreakable,” he spoke in equally powerful terms of the Palestinian people, describing their plight as “intolerable” after 60 years of statelessness, and twice referring to “Palestine” in a way that put Palestinians on parallel footing with Israelis.

Mr. Obama said the bond between the United States and Israel was “based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.”“On the other hand,” Mr. Obama added, “it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years, they’ve endured the pain of dislocation.” He said Americans “will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.”

When he was first elected president in 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad showed his fealty to the leader, gently bending over and kissing his hand. On Saturday, the leader demonstrated his own enthusiasm for the re-elected president, hailing the outcome as “a divine blessing” even before the official three-day challenge period had passed. On Sunday, Mr. Ahmadinejad flaunted his achievement by mounting a celebration rally in the heart of an opposition neighborhood of Tehran

In many ways, his victory is the latest and perhaps final clash in a battle for power and influence that has lasted decades between Mr. Khamenei and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who, while loyal to the Islamic form of government, wanted a more pragmatic approach to the economy, international relations and social conditions at home. Mr. Rafsanjani aligned himself and his family closely with the main reform candidate in this race, Mir Hussein Moussavi, a former prime minister who advocated greater freedom — in particular, greater freedom for women — and a more conciliatory face to the West. Another former president and pragmatist, Mohammed Khatami, had also thrown in heavily with Mr. Moussavi.

The three men, combined with widespread public support and disillusionment with Mr. Ahmadinejad, posed a challenge to the authority of the supreme leader and his allies, political analysts said. The elite Revolutionary Guards and a good part of the intelligence services “feel very much threatened by the reformist movement,” said a political analyst who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. “They feel that the reformists will open up to the West and be lenient on the nuclear issue,” he said. “It is a confrontation of two ways of thinking, the revolutionary and the internationalist. It is a question of power.”

A camp of pragmatic clerics and politicians led by Rafsanjani, while loyal to the revolution's principles, wants to build better ties with the West and a more friendly image of Iran."What is clear is that the leadership is far more polarized and splintered than has been clear in the past," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon analyst with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Now that the leader has made clear he was supportive of Ahmadinejad and sharing the same vision of the future of the Islamic Republic, it can be taken as a major defeat for Rafsanjani and for the political options he promotes," said Frederic Tellier, an Iran expert in the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

Rafsanjani was president between 1989 and 1997, but failed to win a third term when in 2005, losing to Ahmadinejad in a runoff. He was a close follower of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of Iran's Islamic Revolution. He now heads the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council, which can block legislation.He also is the head of the powerful Assembly of Experts, which comprises senior clerics who can elect and dismiss the country's supreme leader.

A daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been released from detention, state television said on Monday. Iran's English-language Press TV had reported that Faezeh Rafsanjani and four other relatives of the former president were detained during an unauthorized protest in Tehran on Saturday. The four other relatives were freed earlier.

Last week, the semi-official Fars News Agency said Faezeh and her brother Mehdi had been barred from leaving Iran.

Iran's powerful Guardian Council said Sunday there were some irregularities in the June 12 presidential election, which has been widely disputed and triggered bloody street protests. The Guardian Council admitted that the number of votes collected in 50 cities was more than the number of eligible voters, the council's spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei told the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) channel.