BANGKOK, Thailand - Thousands of anti-government demonstrators pushed into the Thai prime minister's office compound on Tuesday and tens of thousands rallied outside in the latest protest aimed at deposing a prime minister they accuse of close ties to his disgraced predecessor. read more »
BEIJING - More than a hundred Chinese villagers attacked a police station to protest the death of a man they say was beaten by local Communist Party security guards, police said Friday, the latest in a recent spate of violence triggered by discontent with authorities.
Relatives gathered Thursday after Ouyang Jiusheng, 40, died in a motorcycle accident near Shangnan village in the southern province of Guangdong, according to a police statement sent via e-mail. read more »
TOKYO (AFP) - Thousands of Japanese fishermen rallied in Tokyo on Tuesday to protest against soaring fuel costs as boats across the country sat idle for a one-day strike to draw attention to the industry's woes.
Warning that soaring oil prices could put them out of business, about 3,600 fishermen gathered in a park, demanding state subsidies and emergency help, organisers said. read more »
SAPPORO, Japan - More than 1,000 people marched in northern Japan on Saturday to protest an upcoming summit of the top industrialized countries, and police arrested four protesters after a brief scuffle. No injuries were reported. read more »
By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Jul 6, 2008
SEOUL, South Korea - The American colonel, troubled by what he was hearing, tried to stall at first. But the declassified record shows he finally told his South Korean counterpart it "would be permitted" to machine-gun 3,500 political prisoners, to keep them from joining approaching enemy forces. read more »
SEOUL, South Korea — The government of President Lee Myung-bak sealed off major rallying points in central Seoul on Sunday after hundreds of citizens and police officers were injured read more »
A total of 330 strikes have been recorded so far this year and all of them were illegal because they were not led by the trade union and didn’t follow the law, reported the Vietnam National Confederation of Labour at a conference in Hanoi on June 16-17. read more »
DUJIANGYAN, China - Chinese police dragged away more than 100 parents Tuesday while they were protesting the deaths of their children in poorly constructed schools that collapsed in last month's earthquake.
The parents, many holding pictures of their dead children, were pulled down the street away from a courthouse in Dujiangyan, a resort city northeast of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu. read more »
BANGKOK (AFP) - About 1,200 riot police assembled on Saturday in central Bangkok, waiting for an order from the Thai prime minister who has threatened to forcibly break up an extended anti-government protest.
At least 2,000 protesters defied the threat and continued to block a major avenue in the city's historic district, with some activists fashioning improvised shields and batons out of plywood boards and wooden rods. read more »
SEOUL, South Korea - Thousands of protesters marched through Seoul against a U.S. beef import pact that has renewed fears of mad cow disease. Police said Tuesday that 30 demonstrators were arrested after scuffling erupted.
A crowd estimated by police at 3,000 held a candlelight vigil Monday night before embarking on the march. read more »
By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG Associated Press May 18, 2008
DAEJEON, South Korea - Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950. read more »
BEIJING — Residents took to the streets of a provincial capital over the weekend to protest a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant backed by China’s leading state-run oil company, in the latest instance of popular discontent over an environmental threat in a major city. read more »
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — More than 20,000 Vietnamese workers have walked off the job at a Taiwanese-owned plant that makes shoes for Nike Inc., demanding higher pay to keep pace with skyrocketing prices, officials said Tuesday.
The workers at Ching Luh plant, in southern Long An province, went on strike Monday. They want a 20 percent bump to their $59 average monthly salaries along with better lunches at the company cafeteria, said Nguyen Van Thua, an official with the province's trade union. read more »
CHATAN, Japan (AP)— Several thousand Okinawans angry over recent reports of crimes allegedly committed by U.S. troops held a loud but peaceful protest today, with many demanding the troops be withdrawn from the island altogether.
The protest was followed by a march to the gate of a nearby U.S. Marine base. No incidents or arrests were reported. read more »
Each year, Leaders of the Group of Eight countries - Italy, France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Russia, the United States and Canada - meet to decide policy for the rest of the world. They meet behind closed doors, behind walls of concrete and steel, with armies to protect them from their own people.In July of 2008 they will meet again at the Windsor Hotel resort on Lake Toya, on the island of Hokkaido, Japan.
SHANGHAI, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Hundreds of people marched through China's financial hub of Shanghai on Saturday protesting a planned extension of the city's magnetic levitation train, or "maglev", worried it would emit radiation and sicken them.
Police detained dozens of people, bundling them into waiting cars, vans and buses, as protesters thronged a major shopping street shouting "We don't want the maglev" and carrying placards reading: "No to maglev -- bad for health".
"We are afraid how the radiation will affect us. Why does the government not listen to our concerns?" said a protester surnamed Guan, adding the extension would pass within 100 metres (328 ft) of her house. read more »
SHENZHEN, China - Huang Qingnan lifts his hospital sheets and shows a long scar below his left hip. His right thigh needed stitches and surgeons fought to mend muscle and tendon gashed in his calf.
The 34-year-old labor activist was stabbed repeatedly by knife-wielding thugs, one in a series of attacks that experts and workers' rights advocates fear may signal a worrying new trend — privatized intimidation. read more »
KUALA LUMPUR (AP) - Banging batons against their shields, Malaysian police chased away hundreds of demonstrators who held a candlelight vigil to protest against a decades-old law allowing indefinite detention without trial.
A water cannon fired a single burst to drive away the last stragglers among the crowd in downtown Kuala Lumpur, ending a 90-minute standoff.
Police had banned the rally to protest the Internal Security Act. It was the latest in a series of protests that had rocked the government in recent months. Any gathering of more than four people requires a police permit. read more »
HANOI, VIETNAM(AP): A Vietnamese man set himself on fire to protest the confiscation of the land where he lived that authorities said belonged to the government, police and state media reported Wednesday (26 Dec).
Hoang Huu Hanh, 53, soaked himself with gasoline and lit a match Tuesday (25 Dec) when police pulled down his makeshift house in Hai Ba Trung District, said a local police officer who declined to be identified, citing policy.
Police quickly extinguished the fire and rushed him to a hospital where he remained in serious but stable condition Wednesday, he said. read more »
PKR secretary-general Khalid Ibrahim, PAS election director Mustapha Ali and a teenager were among nine people released by police as at 4pm.
The others freed comprise six members of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih), who had gone to Parliament House to hand over a memorandum to Opposition parliamentarians, to submit to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
In all, 24 members of Bersih had been arrested this morning in the vicinity of Parliament House, while attempting to deliver the memorandum on the extension of the Election Commission chief's retirement age via constitutional amendment. read more »
Workers at the Tae Kwang Vina plant, 19 miles northeast of Ho Chi Minh City are demanding higher salaries and increased cost of living allowances. With the rapid rise of inflation, now at 9.5%, the cost of living in Vietnam has risen sharply, with prices being 10% higher than they were a year ago. The average monthly wage at the plant is $62.
"Given the fact that inflation is so high now, it is hard to say they are being too demanding," said Kieu Minh Sinh, an official with Dong Nai Provincial Trade Union. read more »
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian police used tear gas and water cannon on Sunday to quell a street protest by more than 10,000 ethnic Indians complaining of government discrimination against their community. read more »
Following a wildcat strike which shut down the state rail network on October 31, the rail union is threatening further action if privatisation continues.
The Bangkok Post reported that the State Railways of Thailand (SRT) labour union will resume striking against the Surayud government next month if the authorities fail to meet its demands involving the controversial leases of SRT property to the private sector and revision of SRT privatisation schemes. read more »
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia's prime minister has defended the use of tear gas and water cannon to break up a mass weekend protest for electoral reform, the biggest seen here in a decade, a report said Monday. read more »
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Tens of thousands of South Korean farmers and workers clashed with riot police Sunday at a massive rally against a free trade agreement with the United States.
Some protesters fought with riot police wearing helmets and shields, attacking them with the sticks, throwing stones and trying to turn over police buses set up to block the protest site in central Seoul. Police fired water cannons at the protesters and sprayed fire extinguishers. read more »
YANGON, Myanmar (AP)- More than 100 Buddhist monks marched peacefully Wednesday in a northern Myanmar town noted for its defiance of the country's military rulers, the first large protest since the junta violently crushed a wave anti-government demonstrations.
The monks marched for nearly an hour in the town of Pakokku, chanting a Buddhist prayer that has come to be associated with the pro-democracy cause. They did not carry signs or shout slogans, but their action was clearly in defiance of the military government, as one monk spelled out in a radio interview. read more »
CHINA AND THE MYANMAR [BURMA] SANCTIONS
Thomas Riggins
Recently I have heard and read a lot of criticism of China for not supporting the sanctions against the military dictatorship in Myanmar that the US tried to get the UN to impose. However, the real purpose of the sanctions was not to target Myanmar but to get at China.
The Chinese want a pipeline across Myanmar to bring oil overland to China so that they can bypass the Straits of Malacca which is presently the route for much of the oil on its way by ship to China. If the US should close the straits it could cripple the Chinese economy. The trans Myanmar pipeline is China's answer. read more »
THAI-MYANMAR BORDER - It fell to Buddhist monks, normally nonpolitical advocates of loving kindness, to lead Myanmar's recent uprising, taking over from veteran activists who had secretly organized and planned to confront the ruling military. read more »
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Oct. 12, 2007
BEIJING - China plans to relocate up to 4 million people from areas surrounding the Three Gorges Dam — the world's biggest hydropower project — because of rising concerns over the environment and landslides, state media reported Friday. read more »
YANGON, Myanmar (AP)- A Myanmar opposition party member died during interrogation and two activists were arrested as the ruling junta pressed its crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, an exile group said Wednesday. read more »
By CHISAKI WATANABE, Associated Press Sept. 29, 2007
TOKYO - More than 100,000 people protested Saturday in southern Japan against the central government's order to modify school textbooks which say the country's army forced civilians to commit mass suicide at the end of World War II. read more »
YANGON, Myanmar (AP)- Security forces fired automatic weapons into thousands of pro-democracy protesters for a second day Thursday, and the military government said nine people were killed and 11 wounded. read more »
Sept. 26, 2007 YANGON, Myanmar (AP)- Myanmar security forces opened fire on Buddhist monks and other pro-democracy demonstrators Wednesday for the first time in a month of anti-government protests, killing at least one man and wounding others in chaotic confrontations across Yangon. read more »
YANGON, Myanmar (AP)- Myanmar's military government issued a threat Monday to the barefoot Buddhist monks who led 100,000 people marching through a major city in the strongest protests against the repressive regime for two decades. read more »
YANGON, Myanmar — About 20,000 protesters led by Buddhist monks and nuns on Sunday mounted the largest anti-government protest in Myanmar since a failed 1988 democratic uprising, shouting support for the jailed pro-democracy leader read more »
YANGON, Myanmar (AP )- Monks took to the streets in Myanmar's largest city for a fourth straight day Friday, while the military junta insisted it has no plans to call a state of emergency to quell protests that have posed the greatest threat to the regime in a decade.
Braving intense rain, about 200 monks converged on Mei Lamu pagoda on the outskirts of Yangon. After chanting sermons and praying for 15 minutes, the monks dispersed, witnesses said. read more »
You learn the strangest things from boingboing.net !
Snip from Newsweek article:
In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."
BEIJING, July 29 (Reuters) - Chinese farmers besieged a brewery to protest against pollution and being left out in the economic cold -- common complaints in the China's restive countryside -- local people said on Sunday.
Villagers in the southwest province Sichuan blocked the gate of the brewery and a nearby road close to Shifang city on Thursday and Friday demanding that officials and executives resolve their grievances, locals told Reuters by phone.
"There's been a lot of trouble," said one villager who gave her family name as Huang. "They weren't listening and so we blocked the road." The villagers' complaints could not be verified and the brewery was not taking calls on Sunday. read more »
By GRANT PECK, Associated Press Writer July 25, 2007
BANGKOK, Thailand - A Myanmar human rights defender beaten by a pro-government mob was sentenced to eight years in prison for inciting unrest, activists said Wednesday. read more »
BANGKOK: Hours after a protest that turned into a three-hour melee that injured at least 270 people, Thailand on Monday charged six people in connection with the incident, the most violent anti-coup demonstrations to hit Thailand since the military takeover last year.
Thousands of protesters and police officers squared off Sunday in the Thai capital, leaving about 200 officers and 70 demonstrators injured.
The protest against Thailand's military-installed government took place outside the home of former Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda, said the Bangkok police chief, Lieutenant General Adisorn Nontree. read more »
A 26-year-old blogger in Kuala Lumpur named Nathaniel Tan (jelas.info, suarakeadilan.com, bangkit.net) has been arrested for posting political parody content on the internet.
Supporters are posting the image shown at left on their blogs: Link. Tan is considered a prominent online voice in Malaysia. He was reportedly first detained under an "Official Secrets Act," then later under an "Internal Securities Act" for charges including "publishing lies on the Internet" and alleged possession of classified official documents (thanks boingboing, Bash, Sean Bonner).
HANOI, VIETNAM: Hundreds of people are camping out near a government building in southern Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City to protest alleged corruption and unfair compensation for their land, taken for infrastructure projects, police said Saturday (July 7th).
Protesters from nine southern provinces have converged since June 22th in front of the representative office of the lawmaking National Assembly, said a police officer in Phu Nhuan District. He declined to give his name, citing policy. read more »
Thousands of protesters clashed with police in eastern China last week after security teams moved in to forcefully relocate families involved in a housing dispute, a rights group said yesterday.
Residents refusing to move out of their homes threw gasoline bombs at the security forces, igniting riots on Wednesday in Shengzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
Up to 20,000 protesters and onlookers were at the scene of the riots that left at least five police cars smashed up, it said. read more »
A group of Muslim students has ended a five day protest in the country's troubled south, after the military agreed to investigate claims of military abuse against civilians in the region.
South East Asia correspondent Karen Percy reports that army commanders from Thailand's southern region say they have agreed to establish an independent fact-finding panel to look into claims that civilians have been killed or attacked by soldiers or volunteer security forces engaged by the government. read more »
BEIJING – Protesters broke into government offices, destroying furniture and setting vehicles ablaze in the second known outbreak of violence this month over China's strict family planning policies, local officials and state media said Wednesday.
The latest riots erupted Tuesday in rural parts of the southern region of Guangxi, apparently in the mistaken belief that the government was reducing its fines for violating family size limits, the Xinhua News Agency reported. read more »
BANGKOK : Up to 3,000 people took to the streets of Bangkok on Sunday to protest against Thailand's military-installed government and call for early elections in the kingdom, organisers and the police said.
The demonstrators, who were rallying against a coup last September, gathered at Sanam Luang plaza in central Bangkok in the early evening before peacefully marching to the Democracy Monument a few kilometres away. read more »
By MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press Aug 26, 2008
by Kyoko Hasegawa Tue July 15,
By JOSEPH COLEMAN, Associated Press Jul 5, 2008
By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Jul 6, 2008
By CHOE SANG-HUN 
June 2, 2008
by Thanaporn Promyamyai May 31, 2008
By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press May 26,2008
By 
CHATAN, Japan (AP)— Several thousand Okinawans angry over recent reports of crimes allegedly committed by U.S. troops held a loud but peaceful protest today, with many demanding the troops be withdrawn from the island altogether. 
Libcom.org
By Mark Bendeich Nov. 24, 2007
Libcom.org
Mon Nov 12, 2007
Nov. 11, 2007
By CHISAKI WATANABE, Associated Press Sept. 29, 2007
Sept 27, 2007
Sept. 26, 2007 YANGON, Myanmar (AP)- 
Sept. 24, 2007
By GRANT PECK, Associated Press Writer July 25, 2007
A 26-year-old blogger in Kuala Lumpur named Nathaniel Tan (
