What the World Didn’t See in Tehran

Iranian state television yesterday broadcast the soap operas and covered the news about Rafael Nadal’s withdrawal from Wimbledon and Pakistani operations against the Taliban as if they were the most important stories in the world. Meanwhile, arriving over the internet transom, rough and insistent and bloody, were the tiny electronic dispatches from protesters forced off the streets of Tehran, shaky videos from a city screaming for help. For outsiders tuned into the blog posts, Facebook updates, Tweets and YouTube videos, the torrent of information was compelling and confusing, emotional and rife with rumors, full of sound and fury signifying …

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Soccer Protest: Iran Players Show Support for Mousavi

The history of sport is littered with symbolic political gestures, but few have been as brave as the stand taken by some players on Iran’s national soccer team on June 17. In a World Cup qualifying match in South Korea, at least eight Iranian players wore green wristbands in a defiant show of support for opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, including team captain Mohammed Ali Karimi. Green, the campaign color of Mousavi, has been worn by his supporters during rallies in Tehran both before and after last week’s presidential election.

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Cowboy who won $232 million lottery known as ‘good kid’

Neal Wanless, a down-on-his luck cowboy before winning a $232 million Powerball jackpot last month, was always known for his big heart even when he barely had a dime to his name. Now, with his good fortune, neighbors and former teachers worry that he might be easily separated from his new-found money, although he doesn’t seem to be around to give any of it away. “I just hope he doesn’t get inundated,” his former English teacher Deana Brodkorb told CNN.

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How an Austrian Murder Brought Out the Army in Punjab, India

Caste rivalries and a fight over offerings at a cash-rich Sikh temple in Vienna echoed far and wide on Monday as sectarian violence once again erupted in India’s Sikh majority state of Punjab. At least two people have been killed and 14 injured since news reached Punjab yesterday via text messages and mobile phones that a Sikh preacher of a lower-caste sect, 57-year-old Sant Rama Nand, had been shot dead in a clash in a temple in Austria

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