#opposition demonstrators

[newsdock]

Thousands of opposition demonstrators crowded the streets of the Pakistani capital for a second day Sunday, after a populist cleric issued a 48-hour ultimatum demanding the arrest of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The ultimatum came as protesters led by cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri and cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan converged on Islamabad from the eastern city of Lahore to press their demands. Security in Islamabad has been ramped up, with some 30,000 police and other security forces on the streets. Khan was due to outline his party's demands to the government during an address to protesters Sunday afternoon, Shireen Mazari, a spokeswoman for his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, told AFP. Source: AFP

[newsdock]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Opposition demonstrators disarmed Cambodian security forces and beat them with batons and flag poles in a confrontation Tuesday that came two weeks before the anniversary of the disputed general election last year that led to a bitter political deadlock. Source: Associated Press

[newsdock]

Thailand's authorities warned Sunday that opposition efforts to hand power to an unelected regime risked unleashing new violence, as rival protesters prepared for a showdown over the fate of the crippled government. Opposition demonstrators have delivered an ultimatum for a new leader to be appointed by Monday or they will step up efforts to topple a government clinging to power after premier Yingluck Shinawatra was ousted by the courts. \"Forming an unelected government is illegitimate and will bring more conflict and violence,\" warned Tarit Pengdith, head of the Ministry of Justice's Department of Special Investigation (DSI). The kingdom's long-running crisis broadly pits the Shinawatra family and its supporters -- mostly from northern Thailand -- against a royalist establishment with backing in Bangkok and the south. Source: AFP

[newsdock]

By Eyanir Chinea and Diego Ore CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition said it agreed to attend exploratory talks on Tuesday with President Nicolas Maduro's government in a bid to end the country's worst political unrest for a decade. Clashes between security forces and pro-government militants on one side and hooded opposition demonstrators blocking streets on the other have killed at least 39 people since mid-February. Foreign ministers from the regional Union of South American Nations (Unasur) are in the capital Caracas, shuttling between meetings with the administration and opposition and seeking to persuade both sides to talk. Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, a top opposition official, said the Unasur ministers told them the government was open to opposition demands, including the presence of a "good faith" mediator at any substantive discussions. Source: Reuters

[newsdock]

By Diego Ore CARACAS (Reuters) - Two Venezuelans died from gunshot wounds during protests against socialist President Nicolas Maduro, witnesses and local media said on Saturday, pushing the death toll from almost two months of anti-government protests to 33. Opposition demonstrators complaining of soaring prices and product shortages have vowed to remain in the streets until Maduro resigns, although there are few signs that the country's worst unrest in a decade will force him from office. Argenis Hernandez, 26, was shot in the abdomen as he was demonstrating near a barricade in the central city of Valencia and died early on Saturday in a nearby hospital, according to local media reports. A motorcyclist attempted to cross the barricade and opened fire on demonstrators when they would not let him through, wounding Hernandez. Source: Reuters

[newsdock]

A Venezuelan soldier and a motor cyclist were killed in a standoff with opposition demonstrators who had set up a barricade along an avenue of Caracas, the vice president of the ruling Socialist Party said on Thursday. Demonstrators demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro have for weeks been staging rallies and setting up barricades, leading to clashes with security forces and government supporters. "We have learned that a motorcycle driver was killed by a sniper," said Diosdado Cabello in an unrelated press conference at the National Assembly. "And a member of the National Guard was also killed in the same place by a sniper." The mayor of the Caracas municipality of Sucre, where the events took place, said via his Twitter account that a member of the National Guard had died. Source: Reuters

[newsdock]

By Pavel Polityuk and Matt Robinson KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's parliament voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovich after three months of street protests, while his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko hailed opposition demonstrators as "heroes" in an emotional speech in Kiev after she was released from jail. Yanukovich abandoned the capital to the opposition on Saturday and denounced what he described as a coup after several days of bloodshed this week that claimed 82 lives. Supporters cheered former prime minister Tymoshenko as she left the hospital where she had been held. When she spoke later in Kiev, her reception was mixed. Source: Reuters

[newsdock]

At least three people have been injured as gunfire and explosions broke out during clashes between rival protesters in Thailand. The violence came during fighting between government supporters and opposition demonstrators, who had surrounded a ballot box distribution centre in the capital, Bangkok. The two others were reportedly hurt in two blasts in the north of Bangkok, where supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's Puea Thai Party had gathered to ensure Sunday's election was not disrupted. Some opposition supporters have vowed to block the polls in order to prevent the re-election of Ms Yingluck. Source: Sky News [view]