Riot Police

Anti-Olympic protests erupted into clashes with police Saturday as a roaming band of masked activists broke plate-glass shop windows at the iconic Hudson's Bay Co., smashed car windows and hurled trash cans and news racks into busy intersections. Riot police moved in several times to secure key downtown thoroughfares and occasionally wrestled protesters to the ground with batons, though there were no serious injuries. Police were finally able to corner the band of about 300 protesters on a commercial block in Vancouver's west end and then formed a cordon around the leaders, sealing them off as the crowd screamed "Let them go!"

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.

Dogged by allegations of election fraud and battered by some within his own conservative camp, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad limped defiantly into his second term as Iran's president Wednesday, vowing to strive for "national greatness." As he was sworn in, the empty seats of reformist and moderate politicians boycotting the ceremony gaped from the gallery inside the parliament building while police fired tear gas and swung truncheons to quell a demonstration outside.

  Young men wearing surgical masks and hurling stones rushed police barricades Friday against the pop-pop of tear gas rounds that spread white smoke like a gauze over the street as other protesters retreated with the injured draped in their arms. A new band of men waving flags and splotching their faces with yeast to cut the sting of gas made their run toward the barricades and black-clad riot police in front of the Interior Ministry. Surge and retreat has become a dangerous dance of revolt, full of fury but unable, so far, to break the grip of the nation's military rulers.

China's worst ethnic violence in years broke out Sunday in the northwestern city of Urumqi, leaving 140 people dead and more than 800 injured. The unrest pitted Uighurs, a long-aggrieved Muslim minority, against the Han Chinese, who increasingly dominate the far-flung Xinjiang region. With the death toll climbing over the course of the day, the violence appeared to be far deadlier than that last year in the Tibetan region.

Riot police fired water cannons and tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators and clashed with stone-throwing youths in anti-government protests. Demonstrations against Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad have raged in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, since a judge sentenced Malaysia's ousted No. 2 leader, Anwar Ibrahim, on Wednesday to six years in prison. Armed police repeatedly ordered protesters to disperse, but they ignored the warnings.

Anousheh's hazel eyes burned from the smoke. She caught her breath. Up the boulevard, amid the hazy din, the riot police were beating people with batons and threatening others. Screams erupted, as young men and women ran for cover. The 29-year-old Iranian interior designer and her brother, Babak, had just been up there, at the northern end of Tehran's Africa Boulevard, where the crowds were chanting, "Death to the dictator!"

Marco Van Basten scored three goals today as the Netherlands beat England 3-1 at the European soccer championships, virtually eliminating the Britons. Although there was no violence in the stadium, riot police prepared for possible trouble in downtown Duesseldorf tonight. Tuesday night rowdy British fans rioted downtown, and 200 were arrested during fights at the train station.

Hundreds of South Korean students, denouncing the merger of President Roh Tae Woo's party with two opposition groups, fought a running battle with riot police in Seoul streets Tuesday. The students, from Chungang University, wielded iron bars and hurled gasoline bombs at riot police trying to stop them from marching to the city center, witnesses said. Police fired volley after volley of tear-gas canisters to disperse the masked protesters.

Riot police beat demonstrators with truncheons and fired tear gas canisters as protests in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, persisted over proposed constitutional amendments that critics say would leave President Mwai Kibaki with too much power. Officers fatally shot a man suspected of looting a cellphone store, Police Chief Kingori Mwangi said. Police spokesman Jaspher Ombati said 20 demonstrators were arrested.

Russians told this joke during Stalin's reign of terror: "Comrades, who was better leader, Premiere Stalin or Pres-ee-dent Hoover?" "Hoover, Hoover taught Americanski not to drink!" "But comrades!" spouted another, "Stalin taught Russian worker not to eat!" Russian classical composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75), whose magnificent music was banned by Josef Stalin, may not have found the joke amusing. The Los Angeles Philharmonic recently performed the world premiere of the prologue to Shostakovich's "lost" opera "Orango," a pro-Socialist lampoon of an ugly, greedy, half-man, half-ape capitalist.

Residents revolted Tuesday against development plans in yet another town in Guangdong province, redoubling the challenge to the Communist Party in China's most affluent and open-minded region. The newest uprising involved as many as 30,000 people protesting plans for a coal-fired power plant in the southern seaside town of Haimen. Residents stormed local government offices and blocked a busy highway that runs from the manufacturing hub of Shenzhen to the city of Shantou. Although organizers denied there was any copycat effect from protests in Wukan, a village 70 miles away where residents booted out local government two weeks ago, the similarities were striking enough to be unnerving to a central government that values stability above all. Protesters say riot police reacted harshly to the Haimen uprising, beating demonstrators and firing tear gas into the crowd.

One protester was killed and more than 600 others were injured Saturday in clashes with riot police in Tahrir Square, a fierce battle of tear gas, rubber bullets and stones that was one of the most violent since the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak nine months ago. At least one other protester was killed in Alexandria, where demonstrations and clashes also took place, wire reports said. Another eruption of anger at the ruling military council before next week's parliamentary elections, the fighting broke out when security forces moved to evacuate about 200 protesters who had staged a sit-in late Friday.

Occupy Wall Street protesters were ordered early Tuesday to leave New York City's Zuccotti Park, their longtime encampment in Lower Manhattan, but were told they could return once it had been cleaned. About 1 a.m., police handed out notices from the park's owner, Brookfield Office Properties, and the city saying the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous, the Associated Press reported. Rabbi Chaim Gruber, an Occupy Wall Street member, said police officers were clearing the streets near the park.

Spasms of violence shook Greece's capital on Wednesday as demonstrators armed with gasoline bombs, stones and steel rods clashed with riot police, marring a massive protest against a new batch of proposed budget cuts that officials say are needed to stave off a devastating debt default. Later in the day, lawmakers passed the measures on a first vote, 154 to 141. The 300-member Parliament must approve the measures a second time before they can become law, a move expected Thursday.

The premiere for a movie about a music festival with a controversial past got out of hand itself late Wednesday when thousands of people attempted to crash the Hollywood event, police said. Crowds spilled into the street around Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, with some people throwing bottles at police. Witnesses said others were dancing on a police car, taunting officers and "planking" -- lying down in the street. There were also sporadic fights among people in the crowd.

Several people were hurt, one of them seriously, when riot police in Belgrade beat protesters angry over the annulment of local elections, independent media reported. The opposition insists that its Nov. 17 victories be honored by the government of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. But in the latest blow to opposition hopes, Serbia's Supreme Court said that Milosevic's Socialists won Smederevska Palanka, a town 40 miles southeast of Belgrade, the capital of both Yugoslavia and Serbia.

Several hundred Egyptian protesters hurling rocks and battling through tear gas clashed with security forces for a second day Wednesday outside the Interior Ministry as the demonstrators pressed for swifter trials for officials accused of brutality during the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. It was the worst violence in downtown Cairo in months and revealed the deep mistrust and anger many Egyptians harbor for the state and its police. The number of protesters was relatively small, but the rage flowing through the streets startled riot police who fought off stones and a few Molotov cocktails.

Wielding wooden batons, iron bars and firecrackers, scores of militant youths on Tuesday clashed with police in central Athens, targeting the Finance Ministry and other symbols of Greece's austerity efforts as Parliament debated hugely unpopular budget cuts. The clashes morphed out of a 48-hour nationwide strike that saw hundreds of thousands of Greeks walking off their jobs and spilling into the streets to protest a proposed austerity regimen deemed necessary for securing further financial support from international organizations.