• Dozens of Bahraini Shiite employees fired over pro-democracy protests rallied on Wednesday demanding a return to work, a day after authorities said 181 would be reinstated.

• Thousands of angry Egyptian women joined a fifth day of protests in downtown Cairo to voice outrage over what they said was the military’s abuse and mistreatment of female demonstrators.

• The leaders of the rebellious Wukon village in southern China have reached a tentative resolution with senior provincial officials after a tense 10-day stand-off, which saw the villagers erect blockades around all of its entrances–effectively living outside government control–to protest their lack of basic needs.

• As many as 30,000 people protested plans for a coal-fired power plant in Guangong province, China’s most affluent and open-minded region. Residents stormed local government offices and blocked a busy highway that runs from the manufacturing hub of Shenzhen to the city of Shantou.

• A group of women from the Ukrainian topless-protest group Femen recounted their ordeal in neighboring Belarus, where on Monday they were kidnapped, beaten and abused by local security officials for a protest in Minsk in which they bared their breasts to bring attention to President Aleksander Lukashenko’s crackdown on the opposition.

• After six days of protest, armed with 97,000-plus signatures, queers in Seoul, South Korea got the result they were hoping for. The Seoul Municipal Council’s passage of a Students Rights Ordinance with all clauses intact, including ones that affect the well-being of queer students.

• Demonstrators from Argentina’s UATRE farm hands union, blocked access to the Pan-American highway along some of Buenos Aires City’s main access routes to protest the passage of the controversial Farm Worker Statute, which was debated and approved today at the Senate today.

• For the second time in two weeks, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was temporarily drowned out by Occupy protesters as he made his final push to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. “Mic Check,” they announced, continuing, “Put people first!”

Leymah Gbowee, Liberian activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

One of the most extraordinary nonviolent, transnational movements of the modern age was the women’s suffrage movement of the first two decades of the 20th century. New Zealand first extended the franchise in the late 19th century—after two decades of organizing efforts. As the new century began, women’s suffrage movements gained strength in China, Iran, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), and Vietnam. Another 20 years and women were enfranchised in countries around the world, from Uruguay to Austria, the Netherlands to Turkey, and Germany to the United States. Few if any of those leading the campaigns for the ballot for women would have identified their approach as one of nonviolent action, nor would they have known its philosophical underpinnings or strategic wisdom. Like most who have turned to civil resistance, they did so because it was a direct method not reliant on representatives or agencies and a practical way to oppose an intolerable situation.

What exactly is the link between the rights of women, gender, nonviolent action, and building peace?

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• In spite of the crackdown that has killed at least 110 people in Homs over the last five days, protesters in Hama, Damascus, Deraa as well as several other towns in Idlib and Deir Ez-Zor have taken to the streets in support of those in the beseiged city.

• On Friday, students at Essex High School in Vermont staged a sit-in and protest to support freshman Cole Peterson after he reported being assaulted in anti-gay attack.

• In Chicago, more than 1,000 senior citizens joined forces with Occupy Chicago on Monday to protest cuts to social security, Medicare and Medicaid. After a large march about 50 people were arrested for blocking traffic on the street.

• About a dozen people occupied a historic building in the Romanian city of Cluj on Monday to protest a plan to mine gold using the controversial cyanide process in a nearby heritage area.

• A four-hour general strike took effect across Israel on Monday to demand the government improve working conditions of contract workers.

• Nine Greenpeace activists were arrested after they chained themselves to a gate and climbed a crane Monday at a South African coal-fired power station to protest dependence on coal, weeks before the country hosts a global conference on climate change.

• Thousands of residents of the Northeastern Chinese port city Dalian took to the streets on Sunday to demand the relocation of a petrochemical plant that threatened to spill toxins into the city last week when a typhoon breached a nearby dike. Chinese authorities have complied and ordered the closure of the plant.

• Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis poured into the streets of major cities and towns across the country on Friday, keeping the pressure on the nation’s embattled president to step down.

• About 100 people participated in a two-mile march in Santa Cruz, California on Sunday to demand a halt to construction of 32 homes on what is believed to be a 6,000-year-old Native American burial site.

• More than 1,000 people led by the poet turned activist Javier Sicilia have joined a march in Mexico City to protest the government’s strategy in the fight against drug gangs.

• Tunisian security forces used tear gas and truncheons Monday to disperse several hundred protesters in the capital demanding that the government step down for failing to prosecute supporters of the ousted president.

• Thousands of people turned out at rallies across Australia on Sunday to call on federal MPs to support a ban on live animal exports.

• Thousands of people took to the streets of Dublin yesterday to demand civil marriage equality.

• Tens of thousands of people gathered across Israel on Saturday to call for lower living costs in an effort to show the government their protest movement has countrywide support.

• More than 300,000 people took part in demonstrations across Israel on Saturday night calling for “social justice,” a blanket term covering demands for reforms in housing, taxes, healthcare, childcare, and education.

• Forty-five thousand Verizon Communications Inc. workers from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., went on strike Sunday after negotiations fizzled over a new labor contract for more than a fifth of the company’s work force.

• Tens of thousands of opponents of embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh held rallies across the country following prayers on Friday.

• Thousands of protestors largely drawn from Pakistan Justice Party staged a sit-in protest in front of country’s Parliament in Islamabad on Saturday evening to protest corruption, unemployment and US drone strikes.

• Israeli forces targeted three separate rallies across the West Bank on Friday, firing tear gas at participants and lightly injuring dozens.

• In Jordan, dozens of activists staged a sit-in following Ramadan evening prayers on Friday night in front of Salt city’s cultural center, protesting what they concidered government stalling in impementing nesessery political and economic reforms.

• Thousands of demonstrators angry about the government’s austerity program briefly reoccupied a central Madrid plaza on Saturday after police withdrew following widespread outrage at officers’ handling of a protest two days earlier.

• The pro-LGBT activists from GetEqual Texas braved the Houston sun on Saturday to protest outside Reliant Stadium, where Governor Rick Perry and thousands of  Evangelicals were holding an unabashedly political “day of prayer,” “The Response.”

• Nepalese riot police arrested teachers affiliated with temporary teacher struggle committee during a sit-in protest in front of the education ministry in Kathmandu on Thursday.

Tina Rosenberg, whose recent book Join the Club is a must read for activists, had a piece on the New York Times’ Opinionator blog yesterday criticizing the importance of social media in social movements. In keeping with the thesis of her book—that peer pressure is the driving force behind social change—Rosenberg argues, much like Malcolm Gladwell, that “the idea of Facebook Revolution has been a great example of wishful thinking by the digerati.” She does cite, however, one recent event that gave her some second thoughts.

On Friday, I wrote about Friendfactor, an organizing tool used in the successful battle for gay marriage in New York State.  Friendfactor combines social media and real-world friendship to motivate people to get active.  Instead of getting an e-mail from a group asking you to support a political goal, you get one from a close friend or family member asking you to “help me get my full rights.”    Friendfactor is particularly interesting because it seems to offer a solution to one of the biggest obstacles in using social media for political change:  people need close personal connections in order to get them to take action — especially if that action is risky and difficult.

The Friendfactor story is an interesting one in its own right and worth a read. But despite the promise it offers for strong-tie building, Rosenberg still concludes that social media are nothing without “careful strategy, meticulous planning, strict nonviolence, unity.”

David Faris took exception to this belittling of digital activism in a blog post for the Meta-Activism Project:

What I would love is for Tina Rosenberg to find someone who studies digital media and thinks that street tactics were unimportant in the Egyptian revolution. My own interviews with activists and planners suggest that at least 10 days of careful on-the-ground planning – including timing how long it would take to march down certain streets as well as producing tactics to produce the illusion of greater numbers – went into the Tahrir protests. I don’t think any rational person would argue that the “digerati” put out the call on Facebook and then magically there were a million people in the streets.  Why must these two things be mutually exclusive? Egyptian organizers also learned a great deal about protest tactics from their Tunisian counterparts – and much of this learning took place with online exchanges, including back-and-forth exchanges on, yes, Facebook. This rigid demarcation between “on-the-ground” and “digital” simply does not square with the reality of today’s organizers.

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• Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across Yemen on Sunday, demanding that a transitional presidential council be created to replace embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh and that his sons and relatives leave the country.

• Thousands of Greek demonstrators have begun gathering in front of the parliament in Athens at the start of a 48-hour general strike to protest against deep budget cuts demanded by international lenders as the price for more financial aid.

• Spain’s “indignant” activists began their last and longest protest march on Saturday, leaving from the northeastern city of Barcelona to cover 650 kilometres on their way to a major Madrid rally on July 24.

• Tens of thousands of people demonstrated around Morocco both for and against a proposed new constitution on Sunday, just a week before it is to be voted on in a referendum.

• About 3,000 people marched through downtown Montreal on Saturday to call for an end in Quebec to shale gas exploitation and a technique known as “fracking” that has triggered strong opposition from environmental groups.

• Thousands of people joined hands on Saturday across beaches from Florida to California to form a human chain to protest offshore oil drilling and promote clean energy.

• Police arrested 12 D.C. voting rights activists in front of the White House Saturday afternoon.

• Hamas prisoners being held in Israeli jails on Monday began a hunger strike after seven of their number were put in solitary confinement.

• Seoul National University student council members ended their 28-day sit-in against the university’s privatization plan on Sunday after 40 of 61 students voted to accept a tentative agreement between the council and the university.

• Russian police have arrested and charged up to 14 LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans) activists who were attempting to hold a demonstration in St Petersburg.

• Last Wednesday, Zimbabwe’s public workers began an indefinite strike to press the cash-strapped coalition government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to more than double wages.

• Over 80,000 people took to the streets of Athens late Sunday on the 12th consecutive day of protests against the government’s draconian austerity measures. Some 3,000 people also gathered in Greece’s second largest city, Thessaloniki, according to the police.

• Syrians poured into the streets on Friday in some of the largest antigovernment protests yet despite the shutdown of much of Syria’s Internet network. At least 96 people have died over the past three days in the continued crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

• In Israel, thousands of people rallied in Tel Aviv to denounce Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. It was one of the largest pro-peace rallies Israel has seen in years.

• Up to 23 people were killed and over 350 wounded on Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian demonstrators stormed the border area from Syria.

• The March on Blair Mountain, with more than six hundred people setting out from Marmet, West Virginia on a fifty-mile, five-day journey began today to protest mountaintop removal, strengthen workers’ rights, and support investment in sustainable jobs for Appalachia.

• A two-day sit-in staged to protest against drone attacks concluded on Sunday with a warning to the relevant authorities that supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan would be blocked if drone attacks continued.

• At least 30 people were injured when Indian police used teargas and batons to break up a mass anti-corruption protest led by India’s most famous yoga guru on Sunday.

• Approximately 250 supporters —including many veterans—converged on Saturday at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to rally for the release of alleged whistleblower U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning.

• Sri Lanka’s powerful Buddhist clergy demonstrated Friday urging the president to restore rights of workers and students days after a violent police crackdown on a labour protest killed one factory worker.

• Three gay rights activists, including a former Democratic Senate candidate, were arrested last Thursday for their protest on the floor of the North Carolina House of Representatives.

• Fourteen students were arrested at the University of Washington on Wednesday evening on charges of criminal trespass after they refused to leave a building that was closed, as part of the ongoing protests over the UW’s contract with food-services provider Sodexo.

• About 20,000 people assembled in the Greek capital’s central Syntagma Square on Sunday, responding to calls on social networking sites for gatherings across Europe to demand “real democracy”.

• Tens of thousands of mostly liberal protesters again filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday to call on the military council to end the practice of sending civilians to military trials, to expedite legal action against former President Hosni Mubarak and his associates, and to start governing with some civilian presidential council.

• Five protesters were arrested by U.S. Park Police at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC on Saturday after taking part in a flash mob to protest a recent court decision that upheld a ban on dancing within the memorial. A second protest is being planned for this weekend—and over 2,300 people say they’ll attend.

• Russian police detained more than 60 activists in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Tuesday at demonstrations against restrictions on freedom of assembly.

• Several people were arrested for participating in a banned gay-pride event in Moscow on Saturday.

• Up to 100 protesters blocked the driveway to the Brisbane, Australia hotel where mining bosses from the coal seam gas industry were holding an annual summit yesterday.

• Several dozen opponents of shale gas marched through Quebec, Canada on Monday to warn of its possible environmental impact. Training sessions on how to organize sit-ins and occupy exploration sites are also being planned.

• 15,000 people gathered in the Sbata district of Casablanca on Sunday to demand more democratic freedoms, jobs and better social conditions. But security forces intensified their hardline crackdown.

• Dozens of supporters of hunger-striking retail cleaning workers, joined by U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, rallied Sunday in south Minneapolis to demand higher wages for supermarket floor cleaners.

• Over 100,000 Mexicans took to the streets over the weekend to protest the war on drugs, impunity, corruption, and violence.

• Three people were killed when Yemeni security forces opened fire on demonstrators and launched rocket-propelled grenades at an office building Monday as they cracked down on a protest in the flashpoint city of Taiz in the country’s south.

• About 300 Iraqi oil workers staged a brief walkout in the southern oil hub of Basra on Monday, protesting a lack of financial benefits and threatening to halt production at some fields if their demands were not met.

• Mauritanian secondary schoolteachers on Sunday launched a three-day strike to demand health insurance coverage, new social housing and other benefits.

• Over 100 newly-minted lawyers walked out of their own graduation at the University of Michigan Law School on Saturday to protest the ceremony’s commencement speaker, anti-gay Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH).

• Thousands of people rallied in Japan Saturday to demand a shift away from nuclear power after an earthquake and tsunami sparked the world’s worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl a quarter-century ago.

• Palestinian prisoners in four Israeli jails went on a hunger strike on Sunday in protest against the Israeli solitary confinement policy applied against tens of prisoners who have been denied their basic human rights and mainly the right to get family visits.