Protests rocked the streets of the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, April 28, as an estimated 25,000 people took to the streets in support of Bersih, an organization fighting to reform the nation’s electoral system. The organization refers to itself as ‘The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections’, comprised of 84 Malaysian non-governmental [...]

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The Malaysian police pledged on Monday to investigate violence at a rally supporting free elections that spiraled out of control when protesters broke through barricades in central Kuala Lumpur. The inspector general of police, Ismail Omar, quoted by The Star newspaper, said, “We acted with full restraint for several hours and [...]

Human Rights Watch has accused Bahrain’s police of continuing to beat and torture detainees, including minors. The report comes nearly six months after an independent inquiry prompted the government to pledge reforms. The country insists it is committed to putting the recommendations of its own report into the handling of protests in 2011 into practice. [...]

The protests were aimed at stepping up pressure on the generals to hand over power to civilians and bar ex-regime members from running in forthcoming presidential elections. Both Islamists and liberals turned out in force for the protest, to show the widespread anger at the military over the country’s political chaos ahead of the first [...]

Double standards have notoriously marked Britain and America’s response to the Arab Spring. But nowhere is the hypocrisy more glaring than in their reactions to the uprisings in Bahrain and Syria, where both countries’ governments have used the full might of their security forces to crush peaceful protests and jail and torture their opponents. When [...]

• Tens of thousands protest against regime • UN security council move to send observers to Syria • Clashes reported near Turkish border • Bahrain grand prix ‘will go ahead’ despite protests For more on this story, visit: Syria: security forces confront protesters– Friday 13 April | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Mobs with iron rods and sticks ransacked a supermarket belonging to a major Shiite-owned business group, as part of a spike in violence in the Gulf nation in retaliation for a bomb attack on police. The attack appeared linked to a wave of reprisals and intimidation by suspected Sunni groups angered by the 14-month-old uprising [...]

Protesters at the London AGM criticise the company’s use of a chemical dispersant and say the ecological disaster is far from over Activists protesting at BP‘s annual general meeting in London on Thursday accused the oil company of “cutting corners” in its clean-up of the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico two years [...]

The U.S.-backed monarchy in Bahrain continues the crackdown on protesters, with reports of many injuries and at least one death over the weekend. We speak to Zainab Alkhawaja, the daughter of jailed human rights leader Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who is now on the 54th day of his hunger strike. Doctors say her father could go into [...]

Associated Press — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is sticking determinedly to its stay-the-course message in Afghanistan despite a week of anti-American riots, the point-blank killing of U.S. military advisers and growing election-year demands to bring the troops home. In an echo of the Bush administration on continuing the unpopular war in Iraq, the [...]