Demonstrations

Leaders of demonstrations that plunged the Thai capital into chaos called off their protests Tuesday after rioting that left two dead and more than 120 injured across Bangkok. The swift and unexpected resolution ended with a final crowd of 2,000 die-hard protesters dutifully lining up for waiting government buses to take them home. Thailand Deputy Police Commissioner Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit said four of the protest leaders had surrendered and would be inter- rogated.

Dozens of young women braved crowds of bearded men screaming "Dogs!" to protest an Afghan law that lets husbands demand sex from their wives. Some of the men picked up small stones and pelted the women. "Slaves of the Christians!" chanted the 800 or so counter-demonstrators, a mix of men and women. A line of female police officers locked hands to keep the groups apart. The warring protests Wednesday highlighted the explosive nature of the women's rights debate in Afghanistan.

Thousands of young Jews and elderly Holocaust survivors marched Tuesday at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz to honor those who perished in the Holocaust, while an Israeli official condemned the Iranian president's recent anti-Israel comments. A shofar, or ram's horn, sounded the march's start.

A Serbian union official who chopped off his finger and ate it in a protest over wages that in some cases have not been paid in years said Monday that he did it to show how desperate he and other workers were. "We, the workers, have nothing to eat. We had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example," Zoran Bulatovic said.

Despite the Chinese government's intent to keep the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square out of public discourse, audio recordings and excerpts of a memoir by the Communist Party chief who was purged for opposing it have begun circulating quietly on the Internet. Before his death in 2005, Zhao Ziyang secretly recorded 30 hours of tapes that have been turned into a memoir, "Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang."

The head of the Los Angeles teachers union was among 39 people arrested Friday during a sit-in outside the school district headquarters, one among dozens of peaceful protests around the city by teachers and students outraged by plans for deep cuts in education spending. "Don't raise class size!" the protesters chanted before Los Angeles Police Department officers moved in to break up the demonstration. United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J.

Aiming to reach out to conservative voters, about 3,000 gay-rights supporters gathered Saturday in California's Central Valley in a renewed campaign to win support for same-sex marriage. Just days after the California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages, activists launched a 14 1/2 -mile march from the town of Selma to Fresno, where they rallied in front of City Hall as a peaceful campaign-styled event to win back marriage rights.

The first thing you notice about the protest is the protesters. They're all men. Given the conservative nature of the group and the charged nature of the issue, women are not taking part, even if they have a great stake in the outcome. The second thing you notice are the signs. "Go Taliban Go!" they exclaim, like some high school cheerleader. Wait a minute. Isn't this an anti-Taliban demonstration, being staged in front of a posh Islamabad shopping center?

Thousands of supporters of California's ban on same-sex marriage rallied in Fresno and San Diego on Sunday in what organizers described as a celebration of traditional wedlock and a thank-you to the California Supreme Court for upholding their voter-approved measure. The demonstrations followed Saturday's gathering of gay rights supporters in Fresno to renew efforts to reverse Proposition 8, which the high court let stand early last week.

Protests by indigenous communities over oil drilling and mining in the Peruvian Amazon region turned violent Friday, leaving at least 13 people dead in clashes with police and subsequent rioting. According to local officials, nine police officers and four Indians were killed in an early morning confrontation on a road between Jaen and Bagua in northern Peru and in the protests that followed. The Bagua public defender's office said 45 people were injured.