Riots

Irish nationalist gangs hurled gasoline bombs at police after three alleged IRA dissidents were arrested on suspicion of killing two British soldiers in an attack apparently aimed at triggering wider violence in Northern Ireland. Police arrested Colin Duffy, 41, the best-known Irish republican in Lurgan, a religiously divided town southwest of Belfast, and two other suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents in the mainly Roman Catholic village of Bellaghy in the attack last weekend.

CAIRO -- Egyptian protesters set fire to a police social club and attempted to block the Suez Canal  on Saturday after a court upheld death sentences for 21 soccer fans and acquitted seven police officers accused in a deadly stadium riot last year. Demonstrations in Port Said and Cairo marked the latest escalation in months of unrest and civil disobedience aimed at bringing down President Mohamed Morsi's embattled Islamist-led government. The rage came amid a widening security vacuum spurred by a nationwide police strike.

In 1985, Los Angeles rapper Toddy Tee released what could be considered West Coast hip-hop's opening salvo against police brutality in black neighborhoods. The electro-grooved "Batterram," named for the battering ram that then-LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates used to smash into homes of suspected drug dealers, was a hit on local radio station KDAY-AM. The track went on to become a protest anthem in minority neighborhoods around the city where the device was often deployed against homes that were later proved drug-free: "You're mistakin' my pad for a rockhouse / Well, I know to you we all look the same / But I'm not the one slingin' caine / I work nine to five and ain't a damn thing changed …" rapped Toddy Tee. The L.A. riots of 1992 arrived with its soundtrack in place.

NAIROBI, Kenya - A Kenyan politician facing international criminal charges held a slight edge in the country's presidential election as officials posted complete results early Saturday showing that Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta prevailed by the slimmest of margins, winning 50.03% of the vote. Kenyatta, son of Kenya's first president, needed to win more than half the votes to avoid a runoff election with his nearest competitor, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is likely to demand a recount.

Here are some of the other 23 victims of unsolved homicides related to the L.A. riots. Click for an interactive map of the riots deaths to learn more about all of the incidents: Howard Epstein , 45, was shot and killed April 30, 1992, near Slauson and 7th avenues in Hyde Park. Epstein, who had flown from his Northern California home to check on his South Los Angeles metal manufacturing business, was struck in the head by a bullet apparently fired from a pickup truck that had pulled alongside his car. His car careened into a liquor store parking lot, where a crowd quickly gathered.

It is the first morning of May 1992, and the air outside my Koreatown apartment is acrid with lingering smoke. I gingerly wander through the neighborhood, hoping to find a place to buy a quart of milk. Around the corner on Vermont Avenue is a now-famous ruin, a block-long strip mall whose smoking, melted contours have been broadcast around the world in the last 24 hours. Dozens of stores on the street have been stripped and looted. The day before, I had lingered on my stoop watching people stagger down the block with pillaged sporting goods, small appliances, VHS tapes, cheap furniture, toys and plastic-wrapped suits from the dry cleaners.

What exactly is it about this country at this particular point in time -- what weird mix of postmillennial economic jitters, commodity fetishism, hype, boredom, bad manners -- that is causing people to freak out and riot over basketball shoes? The latest in a wave of sneaker-related melees occurred Thursday at Orlando's Florida Mall, where hundreds of people rushed a Foot Locker in hopes of scoring a pair of limited-edition $220 Nikes. Orange County sheriff's deputies clad in riot gear used shields to block the crowd and threatened the use of pepper spray, though it wasn't ultimately used, according to a report by Susan Jacobson in the Orlando Sentinel.

The rioting that followed the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case has set off an intense debate about the problems of urban America. To explain the causes and effects, The Times is publishing a five-section series. Today's section recalls the emotional images.

As a young Jewish teen-age girl, I don't come face to face with anti-Semitism very often. One cannot identify me as a Jew by just looking at me. Unlike a black teen-age girl, I guess I'm lucky. The other day at a fast-food restaurant a man made a racist slur to the young girl behind the counter. He blamed her for the riots in Los Angeles because of the color of her skin. I honestly believed that my generation was far beyond the ideals of old men like the one at the restaurant. But as I listened to kids at school after the "civil unrest," I couldn't believe what I heard.

As we face the most significant crisis in Los Angeles history, I must correct the mistaken impression being deliberately fostered by a few self-interested members of the police union--who are opposed to the Christopher Commission reform and Charter Amendment F--that my comments somehow contributed to the riots. Some who lack the facts fostered this same irrational assumption. Let me set the record straight. Several times during the evening of April 29, as the riots broke out, I appealed for calm.

NEW DELHI -- Police and demonstrators in Bangladesh clashed for a second day Friday as the death toll rose to at least 37 in violence sparked by a controversial death sentence handed down against the head of an Islamic party for war crimes committed during the country's 1971 war of independence. Local media reported that two people were killed in the rioting Friday, adding to 35 or more deaths after the sentencing of Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a senior leader in Bangladesh's largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami.

CAIRO -- Thousands of Egyptians protested Friday after a week of deadly riots that have shaken President Mohamed Morsi's grip on the nation and spurred fears that fresh unrest may lead to economic collapse. [Updated at 12:45 p.m. Feb. 1: The clashes continued late into the night as protesters in Cairo threw firebombs over the walls of the presidential palace, shot off fireworks and tossed Molotov cocktails as police advanced behind volleys of tear gas to push them back.  Morsi condemned the violence and said he would act with "utmost decisiveness" to guard state buildings.

President Mohamed Morsi invoked emergency powers in three cities Sunday night to stem riots that have killed nearly 50 people and raised questions over whether his Islamist-backed government can secure order amid sharpening political turmoil. In a nationally televised address, Morsi shook his finger at the camera and warned, "Those who try to scare citizens, use weapons, block roads, throw rocks at the innocent, those who attempt to jeopardize the safety and security of this nation, we must deal with them with all force and firmness.

PORT SAID, Egypt - This shipping city of factory men, with its whispers of colonial-era architecture, was once a crossroads for intellectuals, spies and wanderers who conspired in cafes while the Suez Canal was dug and Egypt's storied cotton was exported around the globe. Rising on a slender cusp in the Mediterranean Sea, the town exuded cosmopolitan allure amid the slap of fishing nets and the creak of trawlers. But its fading splendor has been upset by riots and bloodshed that have turned Port Said into a pivotal test of President Mohamed Morsi's ability to calm a nationwide rebellion against his rule.

PORT SAID, Egypt -- President Mohamed Morsi invoked emergency powers in three cities Sunday night to stem riots that have killed nearly 50 people and raised questions over whether his Islamic-backed government can secure order amid sharpening political turmoil. In a nationally televised address, Morsi shook his finger at the camera and warned: “Those who try to scare citizens, use weapons, block roads, throw rocks at the innocent, those who attempt to jeopardize the safety and security of this nation, we must deal with them with all force and firmness.” He added that “everyone must know that state institutions in Egypt ... are fully capable of protecting this nation.” The emergency powers included curfews in the nation's most troubled cities: Ismailia, Port Said and Suez.

CAIRO -- Deadly clashes erupted in the Egyptian city of Port Said after 21 soccer hooligans were sentenced to death for killing rival fans in a riot last year that became a dangerous subplot to the nation's wider unrest and political schisms. Gunshots and tear gas volleys rang out between security forces and supporters of the Masry soccer club after the verdicts were read. Relatives of the accused attempted to storm the jail where soccer fans and former police officials charged in the 2012 stadium melee are imprisoned.

CAIRO - Deadly clashes and an attempted jailbreak erupted in the Egyptian city of Port Said after 21 soccer fans were sentenced to death for killing rivals in a riot last year that underlined the nation's wider unrest and deepening political schisms. At least 30 people were reported killed Saturday, including two police officers. Buildings burned and mobs ran through the streets hoisting the wounded and chanting against the government. Concern intensified that protesters would take up weapons smuggled in from Libya and Sudan.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Human rights groups Saturday urged Venezuela's government to take action to improve conditions in the nation's overcrowded prisons, described as some of the worst in Latin America, as the unofficial death toll from several days of rioting at one facility rose to 55. National Guard members and police at midday were still trying to quell the riot at the Uribana prison in the western city of Barquisimeto, where violence broke out...