Opposition

Iran's so-called green movement is not yet a counterrevolution, but recent developments make clear it is heading in that direction. Seven months after the uprising began, an opposition manifesto is finally taking shape, and its sweeping demands would change the face of Iran. Three bold statements calling for reform have been issued since Friday, one by opposition presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, one by a group of exiled religious intellectuals and the third by university professors.

It's called Lot 160, a 5-inch glass tube that's unremarkable in every way - except that it purportedly held blood drawn from President Ronald Reagan as he lay struggling for life after an assassination attempt. The vial, partially coated with a ring of a residue, is being offered for sale by a British online auction house where bids Tuesday reached nearly $15,000. A label and an accompanying document identify it as having contained a blood sample taken from Reagan at George Washington University Hospital on March 30, 1981, the day he was shot outside aWashington, D.C., hotel.

Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh has tentatively agreed to a five-point plan from opposition leaders that includes the demand that the man who has ruled the troubled Arabian Peninsula nation for more than three decades step down by the end of the year, according to the president's office. Update, March 3, 1:23 p.m.: The office of Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh said Thursday that the president will not step down by the end of this year. Opposition figures and Saleh have reached "an initial agreement," said presidential spokesman Mohammed Basha.

MOSCOW - Stiff new penalties aimed at opposition protesters were given preliminary approval Tuesday by Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin, the target of mass rallies and demonstrations before his March election victory. The bill, which opposition parliament members termed draconian and protested by threatening to file out of a legislative session, calls for fines of up to $50,000 and up to 200 hours of community service for organizers of rallies and demonstrations that grow violent or exceed the approved number of participants.

Political uncertainty and the prospect of renewed violence intensified in Sudan on Thursday when the main opposition groups vowed a partial boycott of national elections over allegations of fraud against the ruling party of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir. The decision undercuts the legitimacy of April 11 elections that have been heralded as the African nation's first credible multi-party contest in 24 years. International monitors have warned of corruption, and the refusal by opposition groups, especially the leading Sudan People's Liberation Movement, to field presidential candidates has further threatened to splinter the war-torn country.

BEIJING - "Beijing power struggle heralds end of China Communist Party," screams one headline. More sensational headlines purport to reveal how the wife of recently sacked Politburo member Bo Xilai poisoned an Englishman, who may have been her lover. And if that weren't enough, other stories claim that "Bo planned airline crash" and "slept with more than 100 women. " It's payback time for Chinese exiles, especially those with a printing press, television station or just a computer at their disposal.

Yemen's political opposition signed an internationally negotiated deal Saturday that lays the groundwork for an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's nearly 33-year rule. Saleh has said he intends to sign the agreement Sunday. But in a speech Saturday, he dismissed the plan as "a mere coup operation. " He also claimed that if he left office, Yemen's Al Qaeda offshoot would overrun parts of the country. "This is the message that I send to our friends and brothers in the United States and the European Union," Saleh said.

Zimbabwe's High Court ordered police to release an opposition member of parliament who was arrested Saturday for the second time in a week amid mounting tensions before this month's presidential runoff. Eric Matinenga was initially arrested June 1 on charges of inciting public violence. He had been released Thursday after charges were dropped. The opposition says President Robert Mugabe's government is trying to sabotage Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai's campaign.

An explosion ripped through the offices of the only opposition newspaper in the Bosnian Serb town of Doboj, a NATO spokesman said. The blast destroyed the offices of Alternativa. There were no injuries. It was the second attack in a few weeks on the paper, owned and edited by retired Bosnian Serb army colonel Milovan Stankovic, an open supporter of Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said there were "an amazingly low number" of violations in a weekend election that returned him to office, but the opposition cited widespread fraud and vowed to fight the outcome in court and on the streets. With more than 85% of precincts counted, Saakashvili, a close U.S. ally, won 51.94% of Saturday's vote, narrowly clearing the 50% threshold for a first-round victory, the Central Elections Commission said. His main challenger, Levan Gachechiladze, had 25.19%.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown defends his soak-the-rich tax proposal as just. And besides, he says, it's popular with the non-rich. Never mind that it's the opposite of reform, that it would make California's roller-coaster tax system even more volatile. But maybe things do have to get worse before they get better. The state treasury is starved for more revenue. The governor is trying to avoid massive cuts to K-12 schools and more swats at the universities. It's probably not practical to wait for reform.

WASHINGTON - Aiming squarely at GOP critics of Wall Street reform, President Obama said Saturday that investment bank JPMorgan's stunning $2-billion loss serves as a reminder of the importance of Washington's role in preventing another financial crisis. The 2010 financial overhaul law counts among Obama's signature legislative achievements, but it continues to come under attack by Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail, including likely presidential nominee Mitt Romney, as an example of government overreach.

DUESSELDORF, Germany — Voters in Germany's most populous state dealt a decisive blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union on Sunday, preliminary results show, a potentially ominous preview of things to come for the chancellor in next year's federal elections. Merkel's party mustered about 26% of the vote in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a drop from 35% in 2010 and 45% in 2005, the year she took office, the results show. The opposition Social Democrats and Greens, at about 39% and more than 11%, respectively, secured the majority of seats they needed to form a governing coalition.

Joyce Redman, a two-time Oscar-nominated Irish-born actress whose erotically charged dinner-eating scene opposite Albert Finney was a highlight of the bawdy 1963 British film comedy "Tom Jones," has died. She was 96. Redman died Thursday in Kent, England after a short battle with pneumonia, said her son, actor Crispin Redman. A veteran of the London and Broadway stage, Redman received her first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for "Tom Jones," which starred Finney as the incorrigible 18th century English title character who has a series of amorous adventures.

There is something very wrong with the relationship between the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the voters who elect them. The supervisors oversee a county that is more populous than 42 states. But few county residents know what the supervisors do or how well they do it. The board members bear some blame for the problem; they are so expert in using the power of incumbency to raise campaign money that few challengers dare file to run against them, so there is rarely much public debate about the county's problems or the supervisors' fitness.

The Lakers know Game 7s, whether painful or prolific. Do they ever. There have been 24 of them in Lakers history, the latest taking place Saturday against the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center. Their first-round series ended too late for this edition, though the historical odds were in the Lakers' favor . . . mainly because they weren't playing Boston. The Lakers were 15-8 in Game 7s before Saturday, though only 1-4 against Boston in such showdowns. The most agonizing Game 7s in Lakers history are easy to pinpoint, primarily because the Celtics are almost always involved.

Re "When the Government Is a Critic," Opinion, Oct. 3: Several members of the elite have vehemently criticized New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's opposition to the feces-covered rendition of the Holy Mother, claiming that the mayor's threat to eliminate funding is crass governmental censorship. It appears strange that not forcing the taxpayer to pay for something deemed offensive is placed in the same category as having it outlawed. This elitist argument appears to be based on the premises that all human activities are (or should be)

CBS' "Kane & Abel" won the battle of the TV dramas Sunday night, with NBC's "Hostage Flight" finishing a close second and ABC's "The Execution of Raymond Graham" running a distant third, ratings from the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed Tuesday. But the most-watched TV movie of the week was "An Early Frost," NBC's two-hour story about a family coping with its son having AIDS. It was seen in about 20 million homes and ranked No. 6 for the week.

Mitt Romney, who fought the legalization of same-sex marriage when he was governor of Massachusetts , said Wednesday that his stand on that “tender and sensitive topic” had not changed. “I have the same view that I've had since running for office,” the presumptive Republican nominee for president told reporters at a campaign stop in Oklahoma City. Romney spoke hours after President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, a move that could have a significant influence on some voters in Virginia, Iowa and other presidential battleground states in November.