Clashes after River's relegation

27 June 2011 Last updated at 09:11 GMT Police used water cannon to disperse River Plate fans at the end of the match

Dozens of people have been injured in clashes that broke out in Buenos Aires after Argentina's legendary football club River Plate were relegated to the second division.

The violence erupted inside the stadium. Street battles between angry fans and police continued outside.

River needed to win by two clear goals against Belgrano de Cordoba, but only managed a 1-1 draw.

This meant that River dropped to the country's B league for the first time.

The match, held in River's Monumental stadium, had to be abandoned in the final minute, amid chaotic scenes.

River Plate's fate seemed sealed after Mariano Pavone missed a penalty

Police fired water cannon up into the stands, following a pitch invasion by furious River fans.

Players from both teams had to be escorted off the field.

The violence continued after the game, with clashes outside the stadium between hardcore fans and helmeted riot police, as helicopters hovered overhead.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas, and also deployed mounted units to try to disperse the fans, who threw rocks and set fire to vehicles and rubbish bins.

At least 65 people were hurt, among them more than 20 police officers, according to Argentine media.

In all, more than 2,000 police had been deployed before the game in an unparalleled security operation for a club game.

Tears

The game itself was a fiercely fought contest. River had gone 1-0 up within the first five minutes.

Continue reading the main story

"From hope and euphoria to sadness and violence" - Clarin, Argentina

"River Plate: 110 years of glory and a day of infinite sadness" - Telam, Argentina

A football game saw the Monumental (stadium) go from hope to senselessness in 90 minutes - La Nacion, Argentina

"Like a true Argentine tango, River's last three seasons end in tragedy" - Gazeta Esportiva, Brazil

"A giant falls, setting off a roar that reverberates around the world" - El Pais, Uruguay

"Drama of the 'millionaires': it is as if Real Madrid were relegated - El Pais, Spain

"The nightmare has come true...League B is no longer a spectre but a harsh reality" -La Gazzetta dello Sport - Italy

But they saw their lead slip in the second half, after a Belgrano goal.

Then the man who had scored River's goal, Mariano Pavone, had a penalty saved, to the stunned reaction of more than 50,000 home fans. And that effectively sealed their fate.

By the end of the game, some of their players were in tears.

River, which has won more domestic titles than any other club (33), was one of only three never to have dropped out of the first division.

Many commentators have described it as a drop into the "abyss".

Argentina's press reacted to the result with disbelief.

The national daily, Clarin, wrote: "No-one, absolutely no-one, will be able to forget this day."

It said while Belgrano had been the "executioner", they did not bear most of the responsibility for River's fate.

And it added that "even the poor refereeing... and the management errors" that had helped bring the club to this point did not justify the incidents at the end of the game.

"Incredible but real" was the headline in the sports paper, Ole.

It flagged up the fact that River's descent has been presided over by one of its all-time greatest players - Daniel Passarella, the club's current president.

Police were among the injured in the troubles that marred the match

In recent weeks, River's fans have reacted angrily to a string of poor results, demanding his resignation.

It has been a steep fall from grace for Passarella, the man who captained Argentina's World Cup winning squad in 1978.

He was idolised by River's supporters when he played for club.

River's decline on the pitch has been mirrored by financial problems.

The club is currently carrying an estimated $19m (?12m) of debts.

This could mean River is forced to sell off several players.

View the original article here

Deadly clashes over Peru college

22 June 2011 Last updated at 14:44 GMT Three people have died in clashes between students and police over plans for a new university in central Peru, officials say.

More than 30 people were said to have been injured in the violence in the city of Huancavelica.

Students are protesting over plans for a new university which they say will harm the viability of an existing one.

Regional President Maciste Diaz Abad has urged calm and called a meeting of senior ministers.

Authorities said the clashes erupted late on Tuesday and went on into the night.

Students had earlier set light to three regional government offices, officials said.

The students say the creation of a new university in Tayacaja - part of the central region of Huancavelica - will divert resources from the National University of Huancavelica in the regional capital.

View the original article here

China police arrest 25 in clashes

12 June 2011 Last updated at 08:42 GMT Last week, there were protests in central Hubei province Police in southern China say they have arrested 25 people after clashes between residents and security forces near the city of Guangzhou.

A crowd threw bottles and bricks at police after a dispute between two street vendors and local security.

Riot police are also patrolling the city of Lichuan in central China after crowds attacked government offices.

Protests and clashes with police are common in China over corruption and land seizures by local officials.

In the Guangzhou incident, reports said people in the town of Xintang blocked traffic and damaged vehicles as the dispute between police and two street vendors, a migrant couple, escalated.

Police later seized control of the area, which is in southern China's manufacturing heartland and is home to migrants working in a number of textile factories.

'Unnatural death'

The arrests follow a separate incident further north, in Lichuan city in Hubei province, where hundreds of people laid siege to local government offices following the death in custody of a respected local official.

The official, Ran Jinxian, had been arrested for allegedly taking bribes linked to land seizures and forced demolitions of people's homes.

Mr Ran, 49, was arrested on 26 May and died on 4 June. His family said he was beaten to death during interrogation.

"Ran's cousin said he found signs of wounds and bruises on Ran's body at the hospital and believed that they were signs of an 'unnatural death'," state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Residents of Lichuan said Mr Ran was arrested because he refused to co-operate with his superiors in a campaign of land requisitions.

Several officials have been detained or are under investigation over Mr Ran's death.

There is widespread anger in China over corruption and the practice of seizing land and clearing out the residents to develop it for a profit.

View the original article here

Tunisian clashes 'destroy camp'

27 May 2011 Last updated at 13:21 GMT A fire in the Eritrean section of the camp earlier in the week killed four people A camp in Tunisia for people fleeing the conflict in Libya has been nearly completely destroyed in clashes also involving local residents, the UN says.

At least two people died and now most of the 4,000 mainly African camp residents are staying out in the open.

"It's the worst conditions; if there is a hell, I think it's this," an Eritrean doctor at the camp told the BBC.

The violence began after protesting refugees demanding resettlement blocked a road, angering locals.

Fleeing to desert

According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, some of the refugees - who are mainly from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan - wanted to be moved after a fire on Sunday night in the Eritrean section of the camp killed four people.

The next day, a large group of camp residents demanding immediate resettlement surrounded the UNHCR's offices, threatened staff and then blocked a main road to the Ras Ajdir border point, an important trade route.

Aid workers were forced to withdraw, after which rival groups within Choucha camp began fighting each other, the UN said.

The situation deteriorated when 500 local Tunisians descended on the camp and many of the residents fled to the surrounding desert in the chaos.

"Two-thirds of the camp has been either looted or burned," Firas Kayal, the UNHCR's spokesman in Tunisia, told the BBC's World Today programme.

"Various groups were fighting amongst each other, the security got totally out of control and the [Tunisian] army tried its best to control the crowds."

Mr Kayal said it took a day and a half to gain control of the situation.

Eritrean doctor Alganesh Fessaha said tensions between the various nationalities began two weeks ago after an alleged rape attempt of a young girl.

"There is no security in this camp, the Tunisian police don't intervene," she said.

In a statement, the UNHCR said its staff had returned to the camp on Thursday and were now meeting representatives from all communities and security was top of the agenda.

Since February, when the conflict in Libya began, tens of thousands of people have fled to Tunisia on Libya's western border.

The UN says it has received just more than half of the $80m (?49m) it has requested for the resulting refugee emergency in Tunisia.

View the original article here

Behind the clashes

15 May 2011 Last updated at 19:07 GMT By Jim Muir BBC News, Beirut Protesters from Syria were not prevented from taking part in the Golan Heights action The "Nakba" day incidents on Israel's borders showed that the Palestinians have undoubtedly been caught up at last in the Arab revolutionary spring fever.

In a very different position from most Arab nations, the Palestinians had so far been largely left out as the spirit of assertive demands for rights and freedoms swept the region and threatened its dictators.

The pent-up frustrations of the Palestinians largely took the form of pressure on their own divided leaderships to unite, something that has now happened.

The 15 May challenges to Israel on its borders with Lebanon and Syria, within the fragmented West Bank and on the Gaza frontier, undoubtedly embodied the same kind of risk-taking, confrontational people-power ethos that has fired the revolts in many parts of the Arab world.

Palestinian militancy and desire for self-assertion in keeping with revolutionary Arab times are very strong and can be taken as a given. But the ability to express those sentiments is something else.

'Common denominators'

There is clearly another dimension to the unprecedented eruptions on Israel's borders with Lebanon and Syria, in which a number of protesters are reported to have been shot dead and many others wounded.

Continue reading the main story

If Hezbollah had not wanted the display of Palestinian refugee militancy at Maroun al-Ras on the south Lebanon border with Israel to happen, it would not have happened”

End Quote The common denominators in both cases are Syria and its ally Iran.

In past years, Syria has prevented Palestinian protesters from getting anywhere near the sensitive Golan border, where Damascus has in the past scrupulously respected its truce agreement with Israel.

Nearly half a million registered Palestinian refugees live in Syria, some of them in camps not far from the Golan.

Syria may be distracted and preoccupied by events inside the country, but so much that it could not have prevented the Golan incident if it had wanted it not to happen?

The real power in southern Lebanon is Hezbollah, the militant Shia movement that was created in the early 1980s by Iran and Syria to counter Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

If Hezbollah had not wanted the display of Palestinian refugee militancy at Maroun al-Ras on the south Lebanon border with Israel to happen, it would not have happened.

Damascus and Tehran retain extremely strong ties with Hezbollah, so by extension, the same is true of them.

It is not clear whether the day's border clashes could turn into an ongoing crisis

Lebanon, like Syria, also has getting on for half a million Palestinian refugees on its soil.

But Jordan has something like two million, yet its borders with Israel, running along the Jordan river, did not see any such incidents because Amman did not want it to happen.

Jordanian police intervened to prevent a mere 200 Palestinian students from marching towards the border, and six of them were injured when they were restrained.

The unusual flare-ups on the Golan and on the Lebanese border came as President Bashar al-Assad's regime moved into its third month of confronting its biggest internal challenge in more than 40 years of rule by his family and the Baath Party.

It would be hard not to see a link between the two developments.

To allow a controlled burst of tension on the borders with Israel might have been seen by the Syrian regime as serving several useful purposes: to divert attention from its internal troubles, and to burnish its nationalist credentials of steadfast resistance to Israel.

It may also have been aimed at conveying to Israel and the Americans the message that if Mr Assad's grip on power should slip, Israel might face a much more militant Syria.

In a recent New York Times interview, the president's controversial businessman cousin, Rami Makhlouf, said that if Syria had no security, Israel would have no security - remarks from which the regime has officially distanced itself, but which came from a key figure within the inner circle of power.

'Playing with fire'

One question Israel will be asking itself is whether the outbursts on the borders might be sustained and turn into a running situation.

Continue reading the main story

Whatever the degree of possible manipulation by Syria and its allies, the message from Palestinians both inside and outside is that the Arab revolution has found another home”

End Quote That is not impossible. But Damascus and its allies in Lebanon know that they are playing with fire.

Syria would be unlikely to permit a situation on the Golan that could get out of hand and lead to a serious engagement with the Israelis that could be deeply damaging, and might even hasten a decision by Washington to move towards a call for regime change.

A warning skirmish is one thing, a serious confrontation something else.

In Lebanon, while anything is possible, Hezbollah is also unlikely to want an open-ended situation in which Palestinians play a leading role.

The Palestinian presence triggered the Israeli invasion in 1982 and other interventions which greatly hurt Hezbollah's Shia community.

The Palestinians in Lebanon played no part in Hezbollah's 2006 war with Israel.

But clearly, these are uncharted waters.

For the first time ever, Lebanon had the extraordinary experience of having people shot dead on its northern border by Syrian security forces because of the upheavals inside Syria, and a larger number shot dead on its southern border because of the Palestinian issue.

Whatever the degree of possible manipulation by Syria and its allies, the message from Palestinians both inside and outside is that the Arab revolution has found another home.

View the original article here