Good news from Iran:

Iranians have dealt a blow to President Ahmadinejad's hardline Government, by thwarting his allies in municipal and clerical elections.

According to early results, Mr Ahmadinejad's fundamentalist mentor who espouses cultural isolation from the West, was trailing sixth in the Tehran vote for the Assembly of Experts, Iran's all-powerful clerical council. Reformists were also expected to seize a handful of seats on Tehran city council, signalling a comeback after three electoral defeats in the past three years.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Iranian student activists who protested President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently have gone into hiding and are being hunted by "vigilantes from the militant Ansar-e Hezbollah group." Here is how one protester described the scene of Ahmadinejad's visit to the university:

"We were chanting, 'Get lost Ahmadinejad!' and 'Ahmadinejad - element of discrimination and corruption.' You could see from his face that he was really shocked. He wasn't flashing his usual smile, and at one stage I thought he was going to cry. He told his supporters to respond with a religious chant hailing Ahmadinejad, but he was so shaken he was actually chanting it himself."

Another student said: "He was trying to keep control of himself, but you could see he was angry and upset."