• Thousands of Bahrainis gathered outside the United Nations headquarters in the capital, Manama, on Wednesday to demand the immediate release of the country’s top human rights activist. Late Tuesday, a Sunni youth group organized a rally of 20,000 people in central Manama protesting the dialogue between the regime and opposition parties.

• South Korean film, TV and music stars who enjoy massive popularity in China gathered in Seoul on Tuesday to protest China’s forced repatriation of North Korean defectors.

• A Palestinian who fasted for 66 days to protest his detention without charge ended his hunger strike on Tuesday after the Israeli authorities agreed to release him in mid-April, if no major new evidence is brought against him.

• Five demonstrators were arrested on Tuesday for trespassing at a state office in Vancouver, Washington where they were protesting a cut in the paid hours for some in-home care service workers.

• Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered in Harlem Monday to protest what they call mass incarceration of minority men by a racist prison system.

The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) is now accepting applications for the seventh annual Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI), which is the “only executive education program in the advanced, interdisciplinary study of nonviolent conflict, taught by leading scholars and practitioners of strategic nonviolent action and authorities from related fields.” The week-long conference will take place from June 24-30, and the application, which is due by March 15, can be downloaded here.

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• In Cambodia, more than 500 employees at a shoe factory in the capital’s Dangkor district went on strike on Wednesday morning after managers failed to respond to a list of workers’ demands.

• Hundreds of protesters blocked streets in eastern Venezuela on Wednesday to demand clean water after a recent oil spill polluted rivers and streams that supply local storage tanks.

• Thousands of supporters of Iran’s opposition Green Movement marched silently through the streets of Tehran on Tuesday to urge the Islamic regime to release political prisoners.

• Outside the White House, hundreds of people rallied on Tuesday to protest China’s treatment of Tibet, ethnic Uyghurs and members of the Falun Gong. Alim Seytoff of the Uyghur American Association urged President Obama to pressure Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping on alleged human rights abuses.

• Six Greenpeace protesters were arrested after unfurling a sign in front of the Duke Energy building Wednesday morning, protesting the company’s recently-approved rate hikes.

• In what was billed as a Valentine’s Day message to the state’s lawmakers,  hundreds of activists gathered on Tuesday at Alabama’s Statehouse to protest the state’s  controversial immigration law.

• Flight attendants and ground workers at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport marched in picket lines Tuesday to protest American Airlines’ plans to outsource jobs and cut pay and benefits under a bankruptcy reorganization.

• Thirteen people were arrested inside the lobby of the AT&T building in Atlanta on Monday during a sit-in to stop the company from laying off 740 union workers across the southeastern United States.

• Some 200 Indonesians converged on a Jakarta square on Tuesday to denounce an Islamic vigilante group known for its armed attacks on minorities and moderates.

• In Portugal, as many as 300,0000 packed Lisbon’s Palace Square on Saturday in the largest rally against austerity and economic hardships since the country resorted to a European Union-International Monetary Fund bailout last May.

• In the largest protest against the government in months, thousands of opposition supporters marched through Manama’s streets today on the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain.

• Braving subzero temperatures, hundreds of thousands of Europeans across the continent took to the streets Saturday, protesting an international trade agreement many say will overrule democratic institutions, jeopardize civil liberties and stifle technological innovation.

• Thousands of protesters massed in Greece under heavy police watch Saturday after the government approved unpopular austerity cuts to get vital rescue funds and avoid the “chaos” of a default.

• Thousands of Japanese joined a march against nuclear power on Saturday as worries grow about the restarting of reactors idled after the March 11th meltdown disaster in northeastern Japan.

• Brazilian authorities claimed Saturday to have broken up strikes by thousands of police in two states after arresting labor leaders, but other police and firefighters had not quit their protest over pay.

• Thousands of Egyptians marched to the Defense Ministry on Friday to press demands for the generals to hand over power, a day before the first anniversary of President Hosni Mubarak’s fall.

• Hactivist group Anonymous took down the CIA government website on Friday.

On January 26, a group of activists with Organizing for Occupation (O4O), Housing is a Human Right and Occupy Wall Street interrupted another foreclosure action in Brooklyn with their singing. (Frida Berrigan reported on the first of these actions back in October.) As you can see from the above video, after selling only one house out of four, the auction was aborted and 39 people were arrested.

In an email interview with Karen Gargamelli, an attorney with Common Law who is involved with O4O, she explains why they have chosen this melodic tactic:

We sing because it is non-violent and because it is beautiful. We hope to confound the systems that evict New Yorkers (the courts) and the elected officials that refuse to regulate the big banks with loveliness.

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• On Saturday, more than 100,000 turned out in the pale winter sunshine for a march in downtown Moscow against election fraud and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s plan to return to the presidency next month.

• Over 10,000 Bahrainis gathered on Sunday to begin a week-long sit-in protest in Meqsha, north of Bahrain, ahead of the one year anniversary of the revolution.

• Hundreds of flights in France were cancelled today, including 40 percent out of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, as unions ratcheted up pressure on day two of a strike over labor rights.

• Antiwar groups held rallies on Saturday in about 80 cities across the United States protesting a possible strike on Iran.

• In Singapore, two hundred foreign workers staged a sit-in on Monday morning in protest over unpaid wages.

• At least one activist died, and another 39 were injured on Sunday after police tried to break up a protest by indigenous groups—who have blockaded the Pan-American Highway for days—against the recent approval of mines and reservoirs in their region.

• In Canada, close to a thousand people marched through Prince Rupert’s streets on Saturday as part of a rally hosted by local first nations against Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the oil tanker traffic it would generate on British Columbia’s northern coast.

• At least 11 Occupy D.C. protesters were arrested Saturday just blocks from the White House as the U.S. Park Police evicted activists who had been sleeping in McPherson Square since October 1. On Sunday, police also cleared a second encampment at Freedom Plaza.

• In one of more than a hundred protests planned across Europe on Saturday, about 2,000 people marched in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

• Some 20 residents of Khirbat al-Tawil village, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, went on a 24-hour hunger strike on Friday to protest against Israel’s occupation of their lands.

A policeman fires tear gas toward Bahraini anti-government protesters in Sitra, Bahrain, Jan 30. The US decided to sell military equipment to Bahrain.

After a $53 million arms sale to Bahrain was delayed this fall following widespread criticism from human rights groups and some in Congress, it was revealed last week that the Obama administration is now moving forward with a new arms deal to the country, without any formal notification to the public. As The Cable reports:

Our congressional sources said that State is using a legal loophole to avoid formally notifying Congress and the public about the new arms sale. The administration can sell anything to anyone without formal notification if the sale is under $1 million. If the total package is over $1 million, State can treat each item as an individual sale, creating multiple sales of less than $1 million and avoiding the burden of notification, which would allow Congress to object and possibly block the deal.

We’re further told that State is keeping the exact items in the sale secret, but is claiming they are for Bahrain’s “external defense” and therefore couldn’t be used against protesters. Of course, that’s the same argument that State made about the first arms package, which was undercut by videos showing the Bahraini military using Humvees to suppress civilian protesters.

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With the authorities in the Siberian city of Barnaul refusing to permit opposition protests since December 10, activists have deployed a creative tactic to voice their opposition to the recent disputed parliamentary elections.

According to the Guardian, rather than take to the streets themselves, and risk arrest or worse, they set up a public display of:

dozens of small dolls – teddy bears, Lego men, South Park figurines – arranged to mimic a protest, complete with signs reading: “I’m for clean elections” and “A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin”.

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Several weeks ago, a 28-year-old Army vet, who had worked with drones during two tours in Iraq and is now a radical art student in New York, came up with a creative act of protest to raise awareness around the growing use of drones domestically by police forces across the country.

According to an article in last week’s New Yorker, over the course of several nights, the veteran (who remains anonymous) and a few friends posted eleven unusual street signs around New York City, which is apparently investigating using drones as a law enforcement tool.

Designed to look exactly like official street signs, the fake NYPD signs had several different messages: “ATTENTION: Drone Activity in Progress,” or “ATTENTION: Local Statutes Enforced by Drones,” or “ATTENTION: Authorized Drone Strike Zone, 8am-8pm, Including Sunday.”

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• Egyptian activist groups on Thursday launched an open-ended strike in Cairo to pressure the country’s military rulers  to expedite the transfer of power to an elected civilian  administration, a day after 100,000 Egyptians came out to Tahrir Square to mark the anniversary of the first massive protest that led to the overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak.

• Activists linked to the global ‘Occupy’ movement used giant red weather balloons to stage a flying protest over the venue of the World Economic Forum on Wednesday.

• Nearly 7,000 prisoners were on a hunger strike Wednesday in Kyrgyzstan with more  than 1,000 sewing shut their lips with staples and thread to protest jail  conditions

• On Tuesday, demonstrators with ACTA stickers on their mouths protested against Poland’s government plans to sign international copyright agreement ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), in front of the European Union office in Warsaw.

• Dozens of teachers turned out at six events across Seattle on Tuesday to protest and rally against budget cuts that are hurting education.

• Nepalese students chanted anti government slogans during a torch rally to protest against Nepal Oil Corporation’s decision to hike prices on major petroleum products, including petrol, diesel, kerosene and LPG in Kathmandu on Tuesday.

• On Tuesday, Cambodian victims held a demonstration to mark the third anniversary of a forced eviction in the Dey Krahorm community.

• Hundreds of Tibetans carried out day-long protests and candle light vigils in Ngaba on Monday calling for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from exile and demanding freedom in Tibet.