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Protests by Tibetan students in China over the right to study in their language have spread, according to a rights group and state media. Thousands marched in Qinghai province on Wednesday, following a peaceful demonstration in Tongren a day earlier.It follows unconfirmed reports of plans to curb the use of the Tibetan language in classrooms in favour of Chinese.Qinghai province is home to many ethnic Tibetans and was the scene of anti-Chinese riots in 2008.Thousands of students, many of them in their early teens, are expressing their desire to continue to study and learn in their native Tibetan, said the London-based Free Tibet.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, is a reminder of the damage autocracies do to themselves when they clamp down on freedom of speech and thought.At a single day's trial last December, Mr Liu was sentenced to 11 years in prison after having helped to draft Charter 08, a manifesto for political change in China.His Nobel prize comes at the precise moment when people right at the top of the Chinese system such as the Premier, Wen Jiabao, are joining the debate about the need for greater political liberalisation.

In the United States, the first week of October passed by without much fanfare. However, for about 10 million Serbian citizens, it was a time to celebrate. This past week was the tenth anniversary of the Serbian people’s victory over communist tyrant Slobodan Milosevic and of the moment the country joined the ranks of the world’s newest democracies.Milosevic was brought down not by bombs, bullets, or a military coup, nor was he even brought down the ballot, although the presidential election of Kostunica was the lynchpin. Milsoevic was forced out of power in a massive display of nonviolent civil resistance that represented the first truly democratic transition of the 21st century.

As the situation in Xinjiang calms down, people from across China discuss the cause of the unrest and the impact it might have on social stability in the future. Harry He, tradesman, XianI used to work for a travel company, so I've travelled to Xinjiang a lot. I was totally shocked when I heard what happened there. Uighurs believe this is their land, and it is. But Han Chinese have been settling down there since the Tang dynasty, when the Silk Route opened up new cities and new opportunities. Maybe the Chinese did rule Xinjiang with an iron first. But we are learning the lesson.Things have already got better for ethnic minorities. In some ways, they enjoy more privileges. For example I have to study really hard to get into university while it's easier for Uighurs, as there is a reserved quota for them regardless of how well they've performed.

Tens of thousands of people, government protesters and supporters alike, demonstrated Saturday in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua."The only way for the government to change, as it has been shown in all these years, is for the people to go to the streets," said Dora Maria Tellez, who was a main figure in President Daniel Ortega's government during the 1980s but who now leads an opposition party."There is no other way," she said at the protests, which appeared to be peaceful. It was not immediately clear how many of the masses were demonstrating against the government and how many had gathered to support it.

TEGICUGALPA, HONDURAS, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009: Nine days before the Honduran elections are scheduled to take place, Channel 36, Cholusat Sur, has been taken off the air once again. A parallel signal has been transmitting over the station. Initially airing pornography, now the same movie has been on repeat for the second day in a row. This new attack on the press comes the morning after Micheletti announced that he would be leaving the Presidency ‘provisionally’ from November 25 until December 2 for the country “to concentrate on the electoral process and not on the political crisis.”Micheletti’s announcement has been “welcomed” by the US State Department which currently along with Panama and Colombia are the only countries recognizing the elections. Micheletti added that he would return if there were threats to security. Officially the armed forces have been turned over to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) 30 days prior to the elections. The National Front Against the Coup D’état in an announcement called the “absence” of Micheletti’s “dictatorship…only a maneuver to hide the totalitarian role of the de facto regime and the armed forces that have been applied to an illegitimate, illegal and fraudulent electoral process.”

A Western Sahara activist on hunger strike in Spain's Canary Islands has been told to appear in court on public order charges, her supporters say.Aminatou Haidar has been refusing food at Lanzarote's airport since Sunday after being expelled by Morocco from the disputed territory. She is protesting at Spain's refusal to let her return to Western Sahara. Morocco controls most of the Western Sahara but Algerian-based separatists want a vote on independence. Ms Haidar was held by Moroccan authorities on Friday when she arrived in Western Sahara's main city, Laayoune - where she lives - on a flight from the Canary Islands. She was then sent back to the islands without her Moroccan passport.

For once, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change appear to have scored a palpable hit against President Robert Mugabe and his allies.Following a meeting with Tsvangirai on 21 October in Cape Town, South African President Jacob Zuma declared that 'the country should not be allowed to slide back into instability, and that he was ready to assist the parties in implementing the Global Political Agreement (Africa Confidential Vol 50 No 17).Tsvangirai's temporary walkout of the power-sharing government came on 16 October, as the faction-fighting around Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front seemed to be reaching a crescendo.

PITTSBURGH -- A relatively small and peaceful group of about 500 protesters, most demanding new jobs programs, marched through city streets in the first full day of demonstrations targeting the Group of 20 economic summit later this week.The turnout was less than the 1,500 expected, and some protest groups blamed the city delays in issuing permits and the promised threefold expansion in the city's police force for the small turnout. Protestors were also critical of comments made by President Barack Obama in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, downplaying the effectiveness of mass protest on abstract issues such as global capitalism.

Today we announced the availability of 24 scholarships to attend an intensive ten-day session of this newspaper's School of Authentic Journalism, February 3 to 13 of 2010 on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The application for scholarships is ten pages long and includes an essay requirement.The video above appeared on CNN last summer but was not filmed by the network. A citizen who had been on a bus to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to attend a protest against the military coup d'etat there took out his cell phone camera and began filming after soldiers stopped a caravan of buses and ordered everyone out of them. The soldiers - as the video discloses - then shot out the bus tires with their rifles.

Liberian women from all religious and academic backgrounds played a courageous role to end the country's bloody civil war which lasted from 1989 to 2003. Wearing only white T-shirts, the women took on the warlords, including Charles Taylor and nonviolently brought peace to Liberia.  Well, their strength and perseverance in stopping the country's brutal civil war is the subject of a documentary – "Pray the Devil Back to Hell". It is showing in over 200 cities around the world, and tonight (Wednesday) the documentary will be shown at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged hunger strikers demonstrating against the treatment of 3,000 Iranian refugees in an Iraqi camp to end their protest. Hunger strikers outside the US embassy in London are demanding the US takes responsibility for Camp Ashraf. Residents of the camp say an Iraqi raid there in July left several people dead. Dr Rowan Williams says the situation at the camp is a humanitarian issue "of real magnitude and urgency", but adds there should be no more loss of life.

Hundreds of Uighur protesters clashed with Chinese anti-riot police in the capital of China's Muslim region of Xinjiang on Tuesday, two days after ethnic unrest left 156 people dead and more than 800 injured. Chinese police have arrested more than 1,400 people following rioting in the restive far western region.Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in ChinaThe protesters said their family members had been arbitrarily arrested in a crackdown after rioting broke out in the regional capital Urumqi on Sunday, a Reuters reporter said.

There are reports of continued violence in China's autonomous Xinjiang region, with police dispersing unruly crowds of the country's predominant Han ethnic group and scattered clashes between Han Chinese and Uyghurs.Han Chinese demonstrators smashed shops thought to be owned by minority Muslim Uyghurs in the regional capital, Urumqi, two days after ethnic unrest in the city that officials blamed on Uyghurs left more than 150 people dead. Police said more than 1,400 had been arrested.

The top Communist official in Urumqi in western China was dismissed on Saturday as a large deployment of the military police appeared to have brought a measure of peace to the city after two days of large street protests.Urumqi was the site of huge ethnic protests in early July. Li Zhi, the party secretary of Urumqi, lost his post, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday evening. He became the most senior person to be removed since ethnic tensions erupted there in rioting in July.

China said a riot that shook the capital of the western Xinjiang region on Sunday killed 140 people and the government called the Uighur ethnic unrest a plot against its power, signalling a security crackdown. Locals took to the streets of the capital, Urumqi, some burning and smashing vehicles and confronting ranks of police and anti-riot troops.A frame grab of a television screen created on July 6, 2009 shows a broadcast by China Central Television (CCTV) in which two bloodstained women are seen on a street in Urumqi, the capital of China's Autonomous Footage also showed a crowd of men pushing over a police car, smashing its windows and throwing stones at it.

OCOTAL, July 25 (AP): Ousted President Manuel Zelaya stood on the edge of his country and called on his fellow Hondurans to resist the coup-installed government. Then he quickly retreated back to Nicaraguan territory, saying he wanted to avoid bloodshed and give negotiations another try. His foray Friday brought the Honduran political crisis no closer to a resolution - and irritated some foreign leaders who are trying to help Zelaya reclaim his post.Still, his brief but dramatic excursion a few feet into his homeland kept up the pressure on the interim government and the international community, highlighting the threat of unrest if the two sides cannot resolve the crisis through negotiations.

Two months to the day after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted from power by the Honduran military and shipped off to Costa Rica in his pyjamas, the resilience and vitality of popular opposition to the coup is making history in this Central American society of economic extremes. Since June 28th when Hondurans were denied the opportunity to participate in a mere opinion poll that had nothing to do with extending Zelaya's term, thousands have been arbitrarily detained, dozens beaten and at least ten people killed by repressive state forces while press freedoms continue to be seriously curtailed.

It could be just another ordinary week day in Bulawayo. Folk scurrying around doing their daily business, vendors plying the wares, battered old cars weaving their way between the potholes. But to the experienced eye, there is something afoot !Is it the abundance of red articles of clothing or is that just a coincidence?Is it the the presence of so many women thronging the streets, nipping in and out of shops, loitering on the sidewalks?

Over the entrance to the three story building that is headquarters to the Organization for Ethnic and Community Development (ODECO, in its Spanish initials) are these words: “Buscamos voces que acallen el silencio.”“We Seek Voices that Hush the Silence.”For seventeen years, ODECO and the man the organization calls its principal strategist, Celeo Alvarez Casildo, have built what is evidently the largest and most advanced project of community organizing anywhere in (and one that reaches across a wide geographical swathe of) Honduras.