Demonstrations

The cry went up loud and clear from the tens of thousands of people crammed together at the campaign rally. "Change! Change!" the crowd chanted. "With our hearts we vote for change!" Indeed, change has in many ways already come to Iraq's normally placid semiautonomous region of Kurdistan, the latest scene of a grass-roots movement demanding new leadership and political reforms.

Security was tight around the bare grave of Neda Agha-Soltan on Thursday. Militiamen and police stood nearby, witnesses said, and it was difficult for visitors to hold a conversation within sight and hearing of the glaring officers. But the visitors come nonetheless to pay their respects to Agha-Soltan, who was fatally shot by an unknown assailant during the protests Saturday over Iran's disputed presidential election.

Israel's week-old assault on the Gaza Strip has widened the rift between Palestinians who back the search by moderate leaders for a peace accord with the Jewish state and those drawn to Hamas' call for armed struggle. The breach was on display Friday in the West Bank as the territory's U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority leadership, striving to contain rising anger over the death toll in Hamas-ruled Gaza, sent police to put down pro-Hamas demonstrations.

More than 1,000 demonstrators gathered Saturday for a noisy, pro-Palestinian rally near the Westwood federal building, marching to Westwood Village and returning to the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Veteran Avenue. Earlier, demonstrators crowded the sidewalks at the intersection, some carrying signs reading "Free Palestine" and "Shame on Israel." One group chanted "Intifada," which means "uprising."

Supporters of both sides in the conflict in Gaza held another round of boisterous but peaceful demonstrations in front of the Federal Building in Westwood on Sunday, separated by dozens of police officers. At a pro-Palestinian rally that began about noon, hundreds of demonstrators lined the curb on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, waving flags and posters. Some read "End the occupation. Start the peace." Another proclaimed, "Gaza = Auschwitz."

Hundreds of Vietnamese Americans demonstrated Saturday outside a provocative art exhibit in Santa Ana that had featured Communist symbols that protesters claimed mocked their painful experiences as political refugees. The protest -- joined by people bused in from as far away as San Jose -- came the day after one of the works was defaced with red paint and the owners of the building ordered the exhibit closed, saying the organizers lacked the proper business license.

Egyptian police have detained at least 350 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, the group and security officials said Sunday. The detentions took place Saturday after a large protest in central Cairo organized by the Islamist group against the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip. A security source said the detainees were being held on suspicion of inciting demonstrations and membership in an illegal organization.

About 1,500 people rallied Tuesday in this Chechen capital to protest the slaying of a lawyer who opposed the early release of a Russian army officer convicted of strangling an 18-year-old Chechen woman. Stanislav Markelov, 34, a prominent Russian human rights lawyer, had worked with the investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya. She was gunned down in Moscow in 2006.

More than 200 people armed with picket signs Thursday afternoon chanted in protest of the planned closure of a Woodland Hills hospital and nursing home owned by the Motion Picture & Television Fund. The crowd flowed from the sidewalk and into the street along Mulholland Drive, west of the 101 Freeway. The protesters -- employees of the care facility, family members of those living there and a few actors and writers -- vowed to keep the facilities open.

On the same grounds where many gathered just two days earlier to witness President Obama's inauguration, thousands of people joined the annual March for Life on the National Mall to protest the 36th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and to voice their opposition to the new president's policies on abortion. Obama's support for abortion rights convinced Jack Maas, 68, of Arlington, Va., that he needed to go to the rally, which ended with a march to the Supreme Court.