Civil Disobedience

Political unrest is taking an economic toll in the Mexican capital, rattling investors and costing businesses millions in lost sales. Observers say leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador may be gaining momentum with his calls for a recount of the July 2 balloting. Results showing that he lost to conservative, pro-business rival Felipe Calderon by a whisker have been subject to allegations of vote tampering and dirty campaigning.

The crisis in Nepal escalated Thursday with the fatal shooting of three protesters, as tens of thousands marched in the capital in defiance of a curfew, demanding that King Gyanendra relinquish power. The nearly two dozen demonstrations, which brought as many as 100,000 people into the streets of Katmandu, ranged from festive democracy rallies to riots by young men who lighted bonfires and hurled bricks at police officers, demanding the death of the king.

Angry crowds demanding the restoration of democracy defied curfews and took to the streets across Nepal, throwing stones at security forces and burning government offices. With both King Gyanendra and the growing opposition movement refusing to back down, the situation appeared to be reaching its most volatile point since he seized absolute power more than a year ago. Opponents range from an armed communist insurgency to white-collar workers.

Thousands of Palestinians broke through Egyptian and Palestinian Authority lines on the Gaza border Friday, pouring into Egypt in defiance of government attempts to secure the frontier. Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defense official, said the Palestinian Authority's credibility was on the line over its failure to stop gunrunners and others from crossing. Palestinians pelted their own security forces with stones at the Saladin gate, the main informal crossing in this border town.

Tile by tile, a new synagogue is rapidly taking form just steps from an outdoor basketball court where five families have moved into a makeshift neighborhood of military tents. On a recent afternoon, there was plenty of room nearby for more arrivals beneath huge canopies that shade a rectangular dirt lot, lending it the appearance of an American fairground.

Defying a ban on men and women running together in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, about 300 people of both sexes took part in a road race Saturday that was more about politics than athletics. A week earlier, baton-wielding police beat runners and arrested dozens almost as soon as they crossed the starting line. But Saturday, riot police armed with tear gas were deployed to protect the race participants against Islamist hard-liners.

Outside the El Burro Bar, Monica and Juana saw the seedy landscape of this border city's red-light district gradually take on a new look with swaying palm trees, pastel-painted hotels and fancy lampposts. Then city inspectors ordered Monica and Juana and all the other prostitutes off the streets and inside the smoky bars and hotels. The new sidewalks, the inspectors said, were for tourists, not the dozens of hookers who crowd the doorways and sidewalks of Callejon Coahuila.

Israel's mainstream settler movement on Monday issued its sharpest challenge yet to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to uproot Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, endorsing a call for settlers to resist the evacuation through civil disobedience. In past months, some extremist settler leaders have made much more strident statements, including personal threats against the prime minister.

Riot police armed with tear gas, clubs and water cannons fought Saturday in Nairobi with hundreds of people defying a ban on a rally for constitutional reform. Critics accuse President Mwai Kibaki of deliberately blocking a new constitution that would create a prime minister's position, considerably trimming his vast presidential power, even though he had promised reform in his campaign to unseat veteran President Daniel Arap Moi in 2002.

Art is an urbane method for not following conventions. Put another way, it's a type of nonviolent civil disobedience. Partly that explains why art's profile tends to be liberal -- a fact that annoys conservatives no end, fueling dark thoughts of cultural conspiracy. But it really shouldn't. Civil disobedience is an American tradition.