Riots

The Chinese government has a New Year's greeting for Tibetans: Celebrate, or else. The Tibetan New Year, or Losar, is normally the most festive holiday of the year, when Tibetans burn incense, make special dumplings and set off fireworks. But this year, Tibetans have declared a moratorium on celebrating their own holiday, saying they will instead observe a mourning period for people killed last year during protests against Chinese rule.

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.

Huge swaths of the Iranian capital erupted in fiery riots that stretched into the early hours today as hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in his quest for a second term amid allegations of widespread fraud and reports that his main challenger had been placed under house arrest.

Will Fan had sprung for VIP tickets to Saturday night's Hard Summer event at the Forum in Inglewood. But before settling in for a night of dance music, Fan made a trip to the bar. Then the night went haywire. A back door of the VIP section, where tickets began at $125, flew open and fans ran in from the parking lot in what Fan described as a "stampede." "We saw about 200 kids run right through the bar area," said the 35-year-old Sherman Oaks resident. "It was a little scary.

Hundreds of children who were jammed into a narrow school staircase panicked and set off a stampede that left five girls dead and 31 students injured in India's capital. Five of the injured were in critical condition, said O.P. Kalra, medical superintendent of Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital in East Delhi, where the children were taken. The stampede occurred early Thursday as students arrived for an exam, Kalra told reporters. Amod Kanth, a well-known child rights activist, said the students were told to move to a higher floor because heavy rain was causing flooding on the ground floor.

As the sky threatened rain here, nearly 2,000 protesters gathered in Arsenal Park on Thursday with a variety of grievances, setting off some clashes with police, and moved toward the distant convention center where world leaders are set to meet today. Major economic conferences have become regular targets for protest groups, and it was no different on the eve of the so-called G-20 summit, the meeting of leaders from the world's 20 largest economies. About the time that President Obama and his wife, Michelle, were stepping off Air Force One, protesters started throwing rocks at police and police cars and dragging trash containers into the middle of the street to block traffic.

Chinese state media confirmed Monday that a steel factory executive was beaten to death after thousands of workers gathered to protest the takeover of their company. Chen Guojun, an executive at Jianlong Steel Holding Co., died Friday after an angry mob in the northeastern rust belt city of Tonghua beat him and then blocked ambulances from reaching him, according to the China Daily.