Demonstrations

Russians from a broad spectrum of political movements protested in several cities Saturday, unified by their discontent over how Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has struggled to gird the country against the global financial crisis. In the Far East port city of Vladivostok, more than 2,000 demonstrators marched along downtown streets chanting, "Putin, resign!"

Police were cleared of wrongdoing Monday in a clash with displaced tenants last month that left six people dead, but the man picked to become South Korea's top police officer withdrew his nomination today because of the incident. Seoul Police Chief Kim Seok-ki, chosen by President Lee Myung-bak to head the National Police Agency, said at a news conference that he made the decision to withdraw to avoid further controversy.

The Mexican Supreme Court on Thursday cleared several top officials of responsibility for civil rights violations when riot police in 2006 used force to quash an uprising near Mexico City. Justices ruled 8 to 3 that it would be unfair to blame top decision-makers, including Enrique Pena Nieto, governor of the state of Mexico, and Eduardo Medina Mora, then the national public safety chief, even though they approved sending police to quell rioters in the town of San Salvador Atenco in May 2006.

On a dull Wilmington corner, where big rigs shudder by, Pat Johnson stands in protest. A homemade sign, black and blue marker stenciled on white poster board, explains: "In loving memory of my husband Charles Johnson who died at UP from neglect." Johnson is unsure what, if anything, the public vigils she and her two daughters keep outside the Union Pacific rail yard will do. Offer closure, maybe. Acknowledgment of what she and her daughters have lost. Time to grieve.

Thais took their politics back into the streets of Bangkok on Tuesday, with a sea of red-shirted protesters surrounding government headquarters and demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva step down. Abhisit defied the demonstrators by slipping into his office under heavy protection early this morning, according to news reports. He exited a short time later to attend an official ceremony in another part of the capital, the reports said.

Three people were pulled out of a burning car Wednesday after they apparently set themselves on fire at a crowded intersection near Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Chinese authorities tried to downplay the possibility that it was a political protest and said the occupants had come to the capital to "voice personal grievance."

Consumers trying to warn the public about so-called loan modification scams found themselves tripping an alarm of another sort Wednesday: About 15 of them got stuck in a Buena Park office building's elevator during a demonstration. The failed protest was the latest in a string of tough breaks for a group of about 30 mostly elderly and Latino homeowners who gathered Wednesday outside the offices of a company called Centre Legal.

On Saturday afternoon, under a cloudless sky, dozens of youths from several nonprofit organizations gathered at the Villa-Parke Community Center in Pasadena to demonstrate for peace and honor Cesar Chavez. The young demonstrators began their march through narrow residential streets, passing houses with well-kept lawns, calling out for peace and an end to violence.

A sea of red-clad anti-government protesters flooded into central Bangkok on Wednesday to demand the resignations of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and a key advisor to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. City officials estimated that 100,000 supporters of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra filled the capital's government district.

Tens of thousands of supporters of an anti-U.S. cleric burned an effigy of former President George W. Bush on Thursday and demanded that U.S. troops leave Iraq, in a rally marking the sixth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces. Cleric Muqtada Sadr, whose Shiite Muslim militia fought U.S. troops intermittently until a cease-fire was declared last May, had called on Iraqis to turn out for the protest at Firdos Square, where a statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled on April 9, 2003.