Opposition Leaders

The street protests that raged against Georgia's U.S.-backed president in recent days are, in part, the gambit of a smart young man with an eye to toppling his onetime boss by being his polar opposite. In a land where leaders are expected to emote theatrically, 35-year-old opposition leader Irakli Alasania is a tamped-down anomaly. The lawyer, negotiator and diplomat is in his element one-on-one, gaze direct, voice low and measured.

At dusk, people hunker down for the evening, holding portable radios to their ears and clustering in doorways to peer at fuzzy black-and-white televisions. Shops are boarded up and hawkers flee before nightfall. The nights belong to the protesters. Most begin peacefully with the demonstrators seated on the ground, arms crossed, as they demand that their 85-year-old president step down. "The old man is dead," they chant. "We have had enough. " Then, stones are hurled and police retaliate with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons.

A high-ranking conservative cleric called for the arrest of the nation's opposition leaders today while a counterpart demanded the release of political prisoners as the nation's political and religious establishment showed no signs of reconciliation following the disputed June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In addition, many lawmakers and clergy from Ahmadinejad's own conservative political camp fumed over his proposed Cabinet, including his decision to nominate three female ministers.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi praised Washington's newly declared support for her country's recent political reforms, but she emphasized the importance of remaining on good terms with the nation's powerful longtime patron, China. After a meeting Friday that capped Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's landmark visit, Suu Kyi said that, with U.S. backing, "I am confident that there will be no turning back from the road toward democracy. " Speaking to journalists on the porch of the lakeside house where she was detained by the government for 15 years, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate also underscored that Myanmar wanted to maintain "good, friendly relations with China, our very close neighbor, and not just with China but the rest of the world.

Defiant amid demands for his execution, Iran's leading opposition figure on Friday issued a scathing denunciation of the government's violent crackdown against his supporters, calling for a restoration of civil liberties to end what he called a "serious crisis" that has destabilized the nation. Mir-Hossein Mousavi's statement, posted to reformist websites, was his first public comments since a violent weekend of protests coinciding with an important religious holiday. Mousavi's 43-year-old nephew, Ali Habibi-Mousavi, was shot to death Sunday.

Iran's hard-line president Friday demanded the prosecution of top opposition leaders, raising the political temperature anew just a day and a half after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sought to cool tensions in a conciliatory speech. Meanwhile, the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency delivered a quarterly assessment of Iran's controversial nuclear program, reporting that the Islamic Republic had granted inspectors access to sensitive research sites but has continued to stonewall efforts to examine past nuclear research allegedly weapons-related.

Police said Saturday they had filed criminal charges against prominent opposition leader Khaleda Zia and nine others for their involvement in an anti-government demonstration Thursday. Police said the leaders were charged with "attempt to murder, rioting and assault on public servants." Officials said the other opposition leaders charged included former Speaker of Parliament Mirza Golam Hafiz; Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders Abul Hasnat and retired Wing Cmdr.

Pakistan's military government arrested more than 20 top opposition figures, capping a three-day crackdown in which about 1,600 activists were rounded up, opposition leaders said. Leaders of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy were arrested by police as they came out of a meeting to discuss a political rally planned for Friday in Lahore, a provincial capital.

An opposition rally in this capital turned bloody for the second straight day Sunday, when an unidentified gang attacked several opposition leaders. Among the victims was Azerbaijan's first president after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Abulfaz Elchibey, who was forced from office in June 1993. Democratic Party leader Ilyas Ismailov and Liberal Party leader Lala Shovkhet-Gajiyeva and several of their party colleagues also were beaten by unidentified attackers.

Ethiopian authorities placed two opposition leaders under house arrest Saturday, saying they were behind a week of violent protests that left 29 dead in clashes with police. Information Minister Bereket Simeon accused the main opposition party, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, of reneging on an agreement -- struck Friday with the ruling party and another opposition coalition -- to work together to end protests.

The long and incendiary reign of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh shows no sign of ending quietly as fresh bloodshed threatens the nation amid efforts by U.S. and European officials to ease weeks of protest and dangerous political maneuvering that could ignite a civil war. At least 11 people were killed Monday when police opened fire for the second consecutive day on tens of thousands of protesters in the southern city of Taiz. In the Red Sea town of Hudaydah, hundreds of demonstrators were wounded when security forces shot tear gas and bullets to halt a predawn march on the presidential palace.

Yemen's political crisis deepened Tuesday as opposition groups rejected an offer by President Ali Abdullah Saleh to negotiate a gradual transfer of power. Under the terms of the offer, Saleh would step down before the end of his term in 2013 but would not immediately relinquish his office, according to a high-ranking government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. "He likely wants to stay in power until the end of this year, or really as long as possible, but the concession is an offer to put some timeline on a transfer of power," the official said.

Bahrain's security forces arrested at least half a dozen opposition leaders Thursday and surrounded Shiite Muslim neighborhoods on the second day of a crackdown that, at least for now, appeared to have left the regime's opponents frightened and divided about how to respond. Opposition activists said the most prominent of those arrested were Hassan Mushaima, a hard-line Shiite leader of the Haq movement who had only weeks ago returned from London exile, and Abdul Jalil Singace, another Haq leader who had been released from prison less than a month ago. Haq has been one of the most prominent opposition groups demanding the elimination of Bahrain's Sunni monarchy.

In a stark rebuke to one of its members, the Arab League urged the United Nations on Saturday to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to stop Moammar Kadafi's warplanes from weeks of bloodshed and heavy bombardment of cities, neighborhoods and oil refineries in territory held by rebels. The move came even as forces loyal to Kadafi advanced eastward toward the strategic city of Port Brega in an intensifying onslaught against outgunned rebels, who retreated from airstrikes and rocket barrages that thundered across deserts and coastal highways.

The glittering fireworks show burst into a thunderous ending. The cheering in the soccer stadium died down. A crowd of mostly young men enduring a chilly Wednesday night to rally in support of Moammar Kadafi's claimed victory over the rebels of this town scrambled to collect their reward: truckloads of free rice, pasta, milk, sodas and vegetable oil handed out from waiting military vehicles. They hauled off their bounty with at least as much enthusiasm as they had shown minutes earlier for their leader, whose forces have for weeks been fighting rebels for control of this city of 210,000 people.

Dozens of people were injured Tuesday when Yemen's security forces opened fire on demonstrators demanding that President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down after more than three decades in power, witnesses said. Yemen's government issued a statement saying the violence was caused by people who resisted arrest when authorities caught them with automatic weapons. The protesters, however, said officers used live ammunition and tear gas when they tried to peacefully claim new territory for a massive sit-in near Sana University.

Black nationalist leader Nelson R. Mandela met Friday with parliamentary opposition leaders at his home in the black township of Soweto, while more than 1,500 anti-apartheid demonstrators staged a pro-democracy protest in downtown Johannesburg. Officials of the Democratic Party, the main white anti-apartheid party, and the United Democratic Front, an anti-apartheid coalition, joined the leader of Parliament's mixed-race chamber in an hourlong discussion with Mandela.

He remembers the desperate pleas of the men at the gallows as they were about to be hanged. Their faces were hidden by black hoods. A man at the podium declared the two had acted against Col. Moammar Kadafi, who had just taken over as leader of Libya. "'We didn't do anything, we didn't do anything,'" he remembers the two men pleading. "'Oh, God. We are not guilty.' And then they started reciting the Koran. " That was four decades years ago, and Anwar Magariaf, who would grow up to become a devoted militant against Kadafi, was perhaps 11 years old. He began to cry. "Kadafi started killing us from the day he came to power," the dissident said.

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.