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BANGKOK, THAILAND: Thousands of anti-government protesters in red shirts gathered at Sanam Luang Monday night (23 Feb) before marching to Government House early Tuesday (24 Feb).Pheu Thai MP Jatuporn Promphan said the red shirts are expected to march to Government House this morning, and though the rally is expected to last a while the exact time period is still unknown.

As tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the Iranian capital Wednesday to protest the results of last week's presidential election, Iranian-Americans in the Bay Area ensured that they, too, had their voices heard.

Ordinary women in long black chadors and head scarves - both young and old - are performing extraordinary acts of bravery in Iran today. Women are at the forefront of these nonviolent demonstrations violently suppressed by the government-backed militias (known as Basij). It took the brutal death of Neda Agha Soltan in Tehran on June 20 during a street protest to bring the role of women in this post-election crisis to light.

Today, 62 percent of all Iranian university students are women, rates of divorce initiated by women have accelerated, and women's rights have become an issue for the leaders of the country.  Iranian women's rights activists have launched the One Million Signature Campaign, which seeks to reform gender inequalities in Iran's constitution. The campaign has raised awareness among Iranian women, irrespective of class or degree of religiosity. The campaign has spread to 16 provinces and even made the members of the conservative parliament react to the women's demands.

Out side the BBC a Demonstration against the bombing of Palestinians, Saturday's air strikes by Israel are the worst in living memory.

Israeli fighter jets fired at Gaza from morning to evening, spreading fear and chaos. Targeting of the strikes where Hamas infrastructures, government buildings and police stations, Most of the dead were policemen, The dead in Gaza include women and children. Medical sources suggested up to a third of the casualties could be civilian. Gaza is one of the most overcrowded territories in the world.

A 73-day protest involving thousands of people demonstrating over the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka has ended. The protest featured hunger strikes, mass sit-ins blocking central London roads and people throwing themselves into the River Thames. One of those involved, Ambi Seevaratnam said: "After 73 days, nothing has worked. The Tamils have been betrayed by the international community." Last month, a senior Metropolitan Police officer warned the long protest was diverting resources from other areas. Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said if it continued it would have a "long term" impact on crime. Police in London chose not to use force to clear the protesters, but maintained a 24-hour presence, with the cost of the operation exceeding £10m.

Tehran, Iran - Supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main rival in the disputed presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, massed in competing rallies Tuesday as the country's most senior Islamic cleric threw his weight behind opposition charges that Ahmadinejad's re-election was rigged.

"No one in their right mind can believe" the official results from Friday's contest, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said of the landslide victory claimed by Ahmadinejad. Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi's charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers "in the worst way possible."

"A government not respecting people's vote has no religious or political legitimacy," he declared in comments on his official Web site. "I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to 'sell their religion,' and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God."

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Marching in dramatic silence, many with tape over their mouths, hundreds of thousands of Iranians kept alive public support for opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi Wednesday even as the government stepped up efforts to thwart daily protests calling for a new presidential election.

More protests are expected Thursday after Moussavi, in a message on his Web site, called for an afternoon "ceremony of mourning," which he planned to attend.

Referring to those who have died or been wounded "as a result of illegal and violent clashes" with his opponents, Moussavi urged people to gather in mosques and holy sites and wear "mourning symbols" in a show of sympathy and support for the families.

Reporting from Cairo -- Footage of burning cars, masked boys and bloodied protesters in Iran is playing across the Middle East, captivating Arab countries where repressive regimes have for years been arresting political bloggers and cyberspace dissidents.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni nations have tense relations with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Shiite-led theocracy ruling Iran. But they don't want protests in Tehran to inspire similar democratic fervor in their countries -- especially the merging of Facebook and Twitter with a potent opposition leader like Iran's presidential challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

What we’re witnessing in Iran over the last several days is the power of nonviolence.

Unarmed Iranians by the hundreds of thousands, and across all ages and classes, have flocked to the streets of Tehran, defying bans and brutal paramilitary squads, to demand one simple thing: that their votes be counted fairly.

The democratic longing, and the democratic thronging, shows no signs of letting up.

“Every day, the number of people attending the protests is increasing,” says Camelia Entekhabifard, author of Camelia: Save Yourself by Telling the Truth—A Memoir of Iran. “It’s drawing people from all generations and societies, from the very cultured to the very traditional. This is a national movement.”

Out side the BBC a Demonstration against the bombing of Palestinians, Saturday's air strikes by Israel are the worst in living memory. Israeli fighter jets fired at Gaza from morning to evening, spreading fear and chaos. Targeting of the strikes where Hamas infrastructures, government buildings and police stations, Most of the dead were policemen, The dead in Gaza include women and children. Medical sources suggested up to a third of the casualties could be civilian. Gaza is one of the most overcrowded territories in the world.

SEOUL: More than 10,000 South Koreans demanding President Lee Myung-Bak resign held an anti-government rally on Wednesday on the 22nd anniversary of a pro-democracy uprising.  The rally was led by opposition parties, who accuse Lee of ordering a politically motivated probe into former president Roh Moo-Hyun, who leapt to his death on May 23 after being investigated in a corruption scandal. The suicide of the liberal leader, who held office from 2003 to 2008, sparked a mass outpouring of grief and fuelled a political row between liberals and conservatives. Police said the rally at a plaza in central Seoul drew about 12,000 people.

An unruly situation emerged when a group of LTTE activists in Australia tried to obstruct a peace rally organized by a number of Sri Lankan residents in Melbourne on Saturday morning. Sri Lankan residents in Melbourne organized a peaceful demonstration in front of the Melbourne State Parliament displaying banners demanding that the LTTE release civilians in the Wanni. Around 2000 people took part in the demonstration.  The demonstration was staged for several hours before a group of LTTE activists who came to the location in their vehicles started parading the area displaying Tiger flags, rally organizers told Auslanka Education.

About 300 protesters from Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney converged on the National Press Club yesterday to protest against Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama's visit. Waving placards that said ''Don't kill Tamils'' and ''Recognise our cry for freedom'', the crowd gathered from 11am. As the delegation arrived, the crowd cried, ''We need press freedom'', ''Don't kill journalists'' and ''Tamils want democracy'' at the motorcade. Although vocal, the crowd was well-behaved.

Demostrations against the last military dictatorship in argentina (1976-1983)Mothers of plaza de mayo (madres de plaza de mayo), demostrators, incidents.The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is a unique organization of Argentine women who have become human rights activists in order to achieve a common goal. For nearly three decades, the Mothers have fought for the right to re-unite with their abducted children.

Violence spilled over from Tibet into neighbouring provinces today as Tibetan protesters defied a Chinese government crackdown while the Dalai Lama warned that the area faced "cultural genocide" and appealed to the world for help.

Supporters of the Dalai Lama said 80 people were killed during the protests in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, with at least 72 others injured. It was the latest negative publicity for China ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.

TORONTO rally that was billed as promoting "anti-violence" turned hostile on Saturday as flag-waving Chinese denounced Tibetans who they blamed for the recent turmoil in Tibet in which 100 are said to have died. Close to 1000 Chinese were in Toronto's Dundas Square for the afternoon event, many of them students. "Dalai Lama die there!" some Chinese shouted at a group of Tibetans who had gathered across the street from the square to protest. "Leave Canada!" others urged. Tibetans say the Chinese rally, which began orderly, was designed to incite hate against them. The event was promoted in Chinese-language press as a rally to tell the "truth" about Tibet and "safeguard the reunification of the motherland."

This video shows how the black activists and leaders misled their people during the anti-apartheid struggle, promising them liberation from poverty. The truth is that they merely manipulated the masses, mobilizing them to provide their leaders with an easy ticket to power and riches. The numerical supremacy of black people meant easy victory through mere "head counting" rather than the true spirit of democracy, that relies on effective opposition to provide successful government.

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) reaches much further than the affirmative action programmes in other countries. It sets quotas for black ownership of companies across all economic sectors in South Africa. Since the ANC assumed government in 1994, a loss of skills and experience on a massive scale in the public sectors (electricity supply, health care, water & sewage management etc.) combined with huge salaries and bonuses awarded to managers who were appointed based on race, rather than qualifications and experience, has resulted in extreme inefficiency and disruption. So far, the large influx of foreign investment capital since 1994 has allowed the country to absorb this squandering of resources while still maintaining economic growth.

However, this video shows the growing resentment against the ANC government for their inability to translate South Africa's economic growth to job creation on a large enough scale, to combat widespread poverty effectively. The ANC has made the mistake of empowering from the top down. They demonstrate a monumental lack of ability to prioritise, spending millions on celebrations, fighter jets, change of street and city names - failing to address the issues closest to people's hearts: unemployment, violent crime and AIDS. Few feel safe in their own homes, and those who can afford it, transform their homes to virtual prisons to try and protect their families. This is not real freedom.

The new, "Black Apartheid" is a far cry from the "non-racial" South Africa promised by the ANC in the lead-up to the 1994 democratic elections. The government's reckless implementation of the affirmative-action policy is forcing many white people to leave the country, creating a skills shortage crisis, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Thursday. "We need to grant white South Africans a meaningful stake in the existing order ... not only does this make economic sense, it is also in line with our vision of a non-racial South Africa of the struggle days," he said.

The reason a majority of white people supported the then-National Party's referendum calling for an end to apartheid rule was because they believed they would have a place in the new South Africa, said Buthelezi. "If the majority of white South Africans had envisaged in the early 1990s the way affirmative action and racial classification would come to dominate the post-apartheid labour market, few would have voted 'Yes' in Mr [FW] de Klerk's watershed referendum on constitutional reform," he said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHamAKmTNIM

Residents living near the Faslane nuclear submarine base have held a demonstration against the ongoing peace protests there. People in Garelochead claim children have been prevented from going to nearby schools during recent anti-Trident protests. About 50 residents marched to the peace camp. A previous protest in April attracted about 120 demonstrators. The naval base is the home of the UK's Trident strategic nuclear deterrent. The submarines which carry the weapons system have been based on the banks of Gareloch for 25 years. The local people taking part in demonstration said they wanted the roads to be clear seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Brian Larkin, a spokesman for the steering group Faslane 365, said the anti-Trident demonstrators were sympathetic to locals' concerns over getting children to school during exam times. "We have urged the autonomous groups who are coming to the area as part of Faslane 365 not to block roads before 9am or between noon and 2pm". He added: "We will continue to organise blockades within our principles of non-violence because the nuclear weapons are still there, they are still illegal and immoral."

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6631441.stm

Otpor was formed on October 10, 1998 in response to repressive university and media laws introduced earlier that year. In the beginning, Otpor's activities were limited to University of Belgrade.In the aftermath of the NATO airstrikes against FR Yugoslavia in 1999 regarding the Kosovo War, Otpor began a political campaign against the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević. This resulted in nationwide police repression against Otpor activists, during which nearly 2000 were arrested, some beaten. During the presidential campaign of September 2000, Otpor launched its "Gotov je" (He's finished) campaign which would galvanize national discontent with Milošević and eventually result in his defeat. Some students who led Otpor used Serbian translations of Gene Sharp's writings on nonviolent action as a theoretical basis for their campaign.Otpor became one of the defining symbols of anti-Milošević struggle and his subsequent overthrow. By aiming their activities at the pool of youth abstinents and other disillusioned voters, Otpor contributed to one of the biggest turnouts ever for the September 24, 2000 federal presidential elections.Having succeeded in persuading a large number of the traditional electorate to abandon Milošević was another one of the areas where the smear-proof Otpor played a key role. Milošević had in the past succeeded in persuading the public that his opponents were spies and traitors, but on this occasion, it backfired, as the beatings and imprisonments during the summer of 2000 further cemented the decision to vote against the regime in many voters' minds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQCrwX7rL_o