Protest March

Catholic hard-liners attacked British soldiers and police after parades by the Orange Order, Northern Ireland's major Protestant brotherhood. No serious injuries were reported. In Ardoyne, Catholic men and teenage boys surrounded several parked army jeeps with soldiers inside, smashed the windows, and tried to tip them over. Riot police used water cannons to drive back the mob.

About 3,000 anti-globalization activists marched in Warsaw against a European economic summit, protesting capitalism, unemployment and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Police barriers kept the protesters away from a hotel where hundreds of business and political leaders attended the second day of a conference on the future of the expanded European Union. The demonstration was mostly peaceful, and no arrests were reported.

Despite the democratic gains of recent years, basic individual freedoms in Mexico still can be trumped by old-fashioned political muscle. Jose Luis Lopez and Enrique Avila Garduno say they found that out the hard way. Lopez, an accountant, and Avila, a chauffeur, recently spent a harrowing week in one of Mexico's most notorious prisons. Their crime? Using foul language. The pair deny they swore at anyone.

Marie Foster, a civil rights activist who helped launch the Selma, Ala., voting rights movement and was brutally beaten by state troopers in an infamous attack during a 1965 march to Montgomery, has died. She was 85. Foster entered a Selma hospital Friday and died Saturday. The cause of death was not released. Close friends and colleagues of Foster noted that although she was in failing health, she continued to be an active participant in social welfare issues in Selma and the state.

British army engineers erected barricades of barbed wire and steel to keep Protestant Orangemen from marching through the main Roman Catholic section of the bitterly divided town of Portadown in Northern Ireland. But military and police commanders said they expected today's standoff to fizzle out. Since 1998 they have refused to let about 2,000 members of the Orange Order make a march from a rural Anglican church past the Catholic homes, because previous marches had inspired violence.

Several thousand antiwar demonstrators marched a mile down Hollywood Boulevard on Sunday, focusing their protest on the domestic costs of war and the prospect of future military conflicts now that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq has crumbled. "We had to shift our message now that the war has changed," said Kristin Norton, a spokeswoman for the Coalition for World Peace and one of the event's organizers.

On the day the United States went to war, federal agents in Southern California were questioning Iraqi immigrants, antiwar protesters blocked streets and officials warned against violence directed at Muslims. The first strikes against Iraq brought reassurances from Gov. Gray Davis and Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn that the state and city faced no specific threats.

Under the shadow of the Colosseum marched the cat ladies, protest banners in the air, kittens in their handbags. Free neutering! the merry mob demanded. Give us a Rome where our cats can roam! Yes, the 2,000-strong kitten crew who marched for "Cat Pride" last weekend had a cause. No, it wasn't about to shake the world. But here in Italy, just about any cause is cause for a rally, from major issues to personal fancies, even feline ones.

A group of Marin County women plan to march naked through San Francisco on Jan. 18 to protest the possibility of war with Iraq. The march on Market Street will be part of a program calling for parallel peace demonstrations in San Francisco and Washington. The Marin women made a splash posing nude for photos in formations spelling "peace" in fields and on beaches.

As a young amateur photographer, Kathy Gallegos trekked 32 years ago to the Eastside of Los Angeles, where thousands were gathering for a series of anti-Vietnam War protests. Fearing one event would turn violent, she left early, missing history in the making. Now, the 53-year-old owner of Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park is hosting an exhibit, including photos and newspaper articles, that captures much of the history she missed.