ISTANBUL - War-torn Syria has warned its citizens not to travel to neighbor Turkey, Reuters reported Monday as Istanbul prepared for a fourth day of violent public demonstrations in which more than 1,000 have been injured.

Syria's Foreign Ministry said it advised Syrians "against travel to Turkey for the time being for their own safety, because of the deteriorating security situation in several Turkish cities...and the violence of (Prime Minister Tayyip) Erdogan's government against peaceful protesters," according to Reuters.

Reuters

Anti-government protesters behind barricades clash with riot police on Istanbul, early Monday.

In Istanbul, hundreds of young men and women gathered on İstiklal Avenue, one of the city's main streets, early Monday. The crowds, which clapped and whistled as they headed toward the city's main Taksim Square, were smaller than those seen over the weekend.

The private Dogan news agency said police fired tear gas at the group in an area close to Erdogan's Istanbul offices. The protesters responded by hurling stones, it reported.

The government of Syria is fighting a two-year uprising in which an estimated 80,000 people have died. In Turkey, more than 1,000 people have been hurt in its largest city Istanbul, capital Ankara and other cities after protesters clashed with police over the last three days.  

Erdogan, a former close ally of Syria's Bashar Assad, turned against Damascus after the Syrian president cracked down on mainly peaceful protests which broke out in March 2011 and have since descended into a brutal civil war.

Turkey is hosting around 370,000 Syrian refugees. It has also been a base for Assad's military and political foes, as well as a transit point for weapon supplies flowing into northern Syria.

On Saturday Syria called on Erdogan to halt what it called his violent repression of protests or step aside -- an echo of the appeals to Assad in the early days of Syria's uprising.

Thanassis Stavrakis / AP

High school students chant slogans during a protest at Gezi park, Taksim square in Istanbul, Monday.

According to Reuters, Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi said:  "The demands of the Turkish people don't deserve all this violence ... If Erdogan is unable to pursue non-violent means, he should resign." 

The recent unrest in Turkey broke out when trees were torn down at a park in Taksim as part of government plans to develop the area.  The demonstrations have broadened into a show of defiance against the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Erdogan has so far stood firm on plans to remake the square, and maintained that the protests were not actually related to the redevelopment.

"It's entirely ideological," he said in an interview on Turkish television. "The main opposition party which is making resistance calls on every street is provoking these protests ... This is about my ruling party, myself and the looming municipality elections in Istanbul and efforts to make the AK Party lose votes here."

Reuters contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Mon Jun 3, 2013 6:29 AM EDT

Murad Sezer / Reuters

Anti-government protesters clash with riot police near Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's office in Istanbul, Turkey, June 2.

ISTANBUL/ANKARA — Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Turkey's four biggest cities on Sunday and clashed with riot police firing tear gas in the third day of the fiercest anti-government protests in years.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan blamed the main secular opposition party for inciting the crowds, whom he called "a few looters", and said the protests were aimed at depriving his ruling AK Party of votes as elections begin next year.

The unrest erupted on Friday when trees were torn down at a park in Istanbul's main Taksim Square under government plans to redevelop the area, but widened into a broad show of defiance against the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Erdogan said the plans to remake the square, long an iconic rallying point for mass demonstrations, would go ahead, including the construction of a new mosque and the rebuilding of a replica Ottoman-era barracks.

Erdogan said the protests had nothing to do with the plans.

"It's entirely ideological," he said in an interview broadcast on Turkish television.

"The main opposition party which is making resistance calls on every street is provoking these protests ... This is about my ruling party, myself and the looming municipality elections in Istanbul and efforts to make the AK Party lose votes here."

Gurcan Ozturk / AFP - Getty Images

Protestors clash with riot police between Taksim and Besiktas in Istanbul late Saturday.

Turkey is due to hold local and presidential elections next year, in which Erdogan is expected to stand, followed by parliamentary polls in 2015.

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) denied orchestrating the unrest, blaming Erdogan's policies.

"Today the people on the street across Turkey are not exclusively from the CHP, but from all ideologies and from all parties," senior party member Mehmet Akif Hamzacebi said.

"What Erdogan has to do is not to blame CHP but draw the necessary lessons from what happened," he told Reuters.

The protests, started by a small group of environmental campaigners, mushroomed when police used force to eject them from the park on Taksim Square. As word spread online, the demonstrations have drawn in a wide range of people of all ages from across the political and social spectrum.

Protests on Sunday were not as violent as the past two days but police used tear gas to try to disperse hundreds of people in Ankara's main Kizilay square. There were similar clashes in Izmir and Adana, Turkey's third and fourth biggest cities.

In Istanbul's Taksim Square, the atmosphere was more festive with some chanting for Erdogan to resign and others singing and dancing. There was little obvious police presence. But there were later clashes between police and protesters near Erdogan's office in a former Ottoman palace in the city.

FEROCITY

There were more than 90 separate demonstrations around the country on Friday and Saturday, officials said. More than 1,000 people have been injured in Istanbul and several hundred more in Ankara, according to medical staff.

The ferocity of the police response in Istanbul shocked Turks, as well as tourists caught up in the unrest in one of the world's most visited destinations. It has drawn rebukes from the United States, European Union and international rights groups.

Helicopters fired tear gas canisters into residential neighborhoods and police used teargas to try to smoke people out of buildings. Footage on YouTube showed one protester being hit by an armored police truck as it charged a barricade.

Erdogan has overseen a transformation in Turkey during his decade in power, turning its once crisis-prone economy into the fastest-growing in Europe.

Erdogan remains by far the most popular politician, but critics point to what they see as his authoritarianism and religiously conservative meddling in private lives in the secular republic.

Tighter restrictions on alcohol sales and warnings against public displays of affection in recent weeks have also provoked protests. Concern that government policy is allowing Turkey to be dragged into the conflict in neighboring Syria by the West has also led to peaceful demonstrations.

On Sunday, Erdogan appeared on television for the fourth time in less than 36 hours, and justified the restrictions on alcohol as for the good of people's health.

"I want them to know that I want these (restrictions) for the sake of their health ... Whoever drinks alcohol is an alcoholic," he said.

This story was originally published on Sun Jun 2, 2013 2:15 PM EDT

Roger Vikstr / EPA

People gather at a protest against police violence and vandalism in Husby, northern Stockholm, Sweden, on May 22.

STOCKHOLM -- Hundreds of youths have torched cars and attacked police in four nights of riots in immigrant suburbs of Sweden's capital, shocking a country that dodged the worst of the financial crisis but failed to solve youth unemployment and resentment among asylum seekers.

Violence spread from the north to the south of the city on Wednesday as groups of youths pushed through Stockholm's suburbs casting stones, breaking windows and setting cars alight. Police in the southern Swedish city of Malmo said two cars had been set ablaze.

Local media said a police station office was set on fire in the southern suburb of Rågsved, where several people were also detained. No one was hurt and the fire was quickly put out.

The attackers have awaited nightfall before setting out, defying a call for calm from the country's prime minister and damaging stores, schools, a police station and an arts and crafts center in the four days of violence.

"I think there is a feeling that we need to be in more places tonight," said Towe Hagg, spokeswoman for Stockholm police. One police officer was injured in the latest attacks and five people were arrested for attempted arson.

Selcuk Ceken, who works at a local youth activity center in Hagsatra, said between 40 and 50 youths threw stones at police and smashed windows, then ran off in different directions. He noted the people were in their 20s and seemed well organized.

"It's difficult to say why they're doing this," he said. "Maybe it's anger at the law and order forces, maybe it's anger at their own personal situation, such as unemployment or having nowhere to live."

The riots appear to have been sparked by the police killing of a 69-year-old man wielding a machete in the suburb of Husby this month, which prompted accusations of police brutality. The riots then spread from Husby to other poor Stockholm suburbs.

"We see a society that is becoming increasingly divided and where the gaps, both socially and economically, are becoming larger," said Rami Al-khamisi, co-founder of Megafonen, a group that works for social change in the suburbs.

"And the people out here are being hit the hardest ... We have institutional racism."

The riots were less severe than those of the past two summers in Britain and France but provided a reminder that even in places less ravaged by the financial crisis than Greece or Spain, state belt-tightening is toughest on the poor, especially immigrants.

"The reason is very simple. Unemployment, the housing situation, disrespect from police," said Rouzbeh Djalaie, editor of the local Norra Sidan newspaper, which covers Husby. "It just takes something to start a riot, and that was the shooting."

Djalaie said youths were often stopped by police in the streets for unnecessary identity checks. During the riots, he said some police called local youths "apes."

The television pictures of blazing cars come as a jolt to a country proud of its reputation for social justice as well as its hospitality toward refugees from war and repression.

"I understand why many people who live in these suburbs and in Husby are worried, upset, angry and concerned," said Justice Minister Beatrice Ask. "Social exclusion is a very serious cause of many problems, we understand that."

After decades of practicing the "Swedish model" of generous welfare benefits, Stockholm has been reducing the role of the state since the 1990s, spurring the fastest growth in inequality of any advanced OECD economy.

While average living standards are still among the highest in Europe, successive governments have failed to substantially reduce long-term youth unemployment and poverty, which have affected immigrant communities worst.

Some 15 percent of the population are foreign-born, and unemployment among these stands at 16 percent, compared with 6 percent for native Swedes, according to OECD data.

Youth unemployment in Husby, at 6 percent, is twice the overall average across the capital.

Related:

Sweden stunned by third night of rioting

Reuters

Relatives of inmates wait for information on their loved ones after a prison riot at La Pila prison in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi.

MEXICO CITY — Thirteen people were killed and 65 injured in a prison riot Saturday in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, local officials said.

A fight broke out before daybreak among prisoners in a cell block in the La Pila prison in the state capital of San Luis Potosi, and state police re-established control by the morning, officials said.

Concepcion Tovar, head of the state’s prison system, told reporters that at least 100 inmates participated in the riot, which she blamed on a gang that had been harassing and robbing other inmates.

State officials said via social media that 13 people were killed and about 65 injured in the riot. They did not make clear whether all those killed or injured were inmates.

The deaths were caused by sharp objects and other improvised weapons, Tovar said. It was unclear whether the violence was linked to drug gangs, whose turf wars and battles over trafficking routes to the United States have spread across Mexico.

Deadly riots have repeatedly rocked the country’s overcrowded prisons, which house inmates from different gangs.

Killings linked to organized crime fell 14 percent to 4,249 in the first four months of the presidency of Enrique Pena Nieto, who took over in December and vowed to reduce the violence that has marred Latin America’s second-biggest economy.

Nearly 70,000 people were killed during the 2006-2012 term of President Felipe Calderon, who sent the military to fight drug cartels. An additional 27,000 are missing, according to official data.

This story was originally published on Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:41 PM EDT

Slideshow: The life and times of Margaret Thatcher

John Minihan / Getty Images

A pioneer for her sex, Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom for almost 12 years. Take a look back at her life and career.

Launch slideshow

LONDON - Police were on standby for street violence after protesters pledged to "celebrate" the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with a party at the scene of a 1990 riot against one of her most unpopular policies.

Senior police officers have already launched an operation to prevent disorder surrounding her televised funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday, which is due to be attended by Britain’s queen and world leaders. Every living former U.S. president is invited.

With tight security around the official event, protest groups have threatened to gather on Saturday in London’s Trafalgar Square, where thousands rioted in March 1990 in protest against the introduction of the Poll Tax – a despised local government tax system that proved to be one of the main triggers of Thatcher’s political downfall in November that year.

Class War, which posted details of the event on Twitter, told the London Evening Standard that protesters planned to install an effigy of Thatcher on a vacant plinth in the square, which will then be toppled in a moment that a spokesman said would be a moment of “liberation and cathartic retribution.”

On Facebook, a group called “Maggie's good riddance party” called on demonstrators to gather at the funeral, with some attendees planning to turn their backs on Thatcher’s casket as it was taken through the streets. 

Thatcher, the country’s longest serving prime minister in a century and the first woman to hold the job, died on Monday after suffering a stroke at the age of 87.

She is both revered and reviled in Britain, where her free market reforms led a national economic resurgence but also created pockets of deep social deprivation in areas where former state-run industries such as coal mines and steel works were shut down or sold off with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Steve Eason / Hulton Archive via Getty Images, file

Police and demonstrators clash in London's Trafalgar Square during rioting, which arose from a demonstration against the Poll Tax March 31, 1990.

Within hours of her death, there were violent scenes at celebratory parties, prompting much introspection in Britain about how to mark with the passing of an important but controversial national figure.

At her own request, she will not have an official state funeral - a decision that appeared to acknowledge that a government-funded event would be controversial and unpopular – and insisted there should be no military fly-past.

However, Wednesday’s ceremony is shaping up to the grandest of its kind since the funeral of wartime leader Winston Churchill in 1964.

Although groups cheering Thatcher’s death are in a minority, police are monitoring social media to gather intelligence on the scale and nature of any protests.

"Some say Margaret Thatcher is a divisive figure, but that's part of the tapestry of policing these events,” Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones told the Daily Telegraph. “If people come to London to cause trouble and commit crime we will deal with you.”

In a statement, she added: “The right to protest is one that must be upheld, however, we will work to do that whilst balancing the rights of those who wish to pay their respects and those who wish to travel about London as usual.”

The force is using its experience from handling the London Olympics in July to deal with the event. Blanket stop-and-search powers are expected to be introduced in the run up to the funeral.

The force also has a Fixated Threat Assessment Centre, which monitors disturbed individuals are obsessed with public figures.

Saturday’s protest is being supported by other groups such as the All London Anarchist Revolutionary Mob, the London Evening Standard reported.

“Miners will be coming down from the north, Wapping printers, steel workers - it will be a big crowd. We are talking thousands,” Class War founder Ian Bone told the newspaper.

 “It has been planned for years, always for the first Saturday after her death, and it is in the right place, where the Poll Tax riots were taking place.”

Jones added that dealing with threats of disorder was “part of the normal daily business of London.”

“We deal with more than 3,500 protests or facilitated events a year so this is nothing new,” she added.

Police are also liaising with Britain’s intelligence agencies amid speculation the funeral could be targeted by Irish Republican terrorists – although the overall terror threat level remained unchanged.

Thatcher was targeted by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1984 in retaliation for her tough stance on the organization, and saw two close political friends killed in terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, opponents are doing their best to get the "Wizard of Oz" song "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to the top of Britain’s version of the Billboard Hot 100. Midweek sales already have it in the Top 5 in the wake of a Facebook campaign.

That means the BBC will have to play the song during its chart show on Sunday. Conservative politicians have called on the broadcaster to not give it airtime. 

The BBC says its chart show is a factual account of what the British public has been buying and they will make a decision about whether to play the song when the final chart positions are clear on Sunday.

NBC News' Duncan Golestani contributed to this report.

Related:

'Iron Lady' Margaret Thatcher, who led conservative resurgence in Britain, dies at 87

Debate over funeral for 'loved, hated' former PM Thatcher divides Britain

'Wizard of Oz' song hits UK charts after Margaret Thatcher's death

Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

Firemen attempt to extinguish fires during riots in Meikhtila, Myanmar, on March 22, 2013. Unrest between Buddhists and Muslims in central Myanmar has reduced neighborhoods to ashes and stoked fears that last year's sectarian bloodshed is spreading into the country's heartland in a test of Asia's newest democracy.

Nyein Chan Naing / EPA

A riot policeman stands guard next to a burning building in Meikhtila on March 22, 2013. A curfew was imposed for the second night as riots between Buddhists and Muslims continued.

By The Associated Press

MEIKHTILA, Myanmar — Myanmar President Thein Sein has declared a state of emergency in a central town where at least 20 people have been killed in violence between Buddhists and Muslims.

Burning fires from two days of Buddhist-Muslim violence smoldered across Meikhtila on Friday as residents cowered indoors amid growing fears the country's latest bout of sectarian bloodshed could spread.

The government's struggle to contain the unrest is proving another major challenge to Thein Sein's reformist administration as it attempts to chart a path to democracy after nearly half a century of military rule that once crushed all dissent. Read the full story.

Nyein Chan Naing / EPA

People carry their belongings as they arrive at a temporary rescue center in Meikhtila on March 22, 2013.

Soe Than Win / AFP - Getty Images

Residents sit on a railway track watching buildings burn around a mosque in riot-hit Meikhtila on March 21, 2013.

Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

Burnt houses are seen in Meikhtila on March 21, 2013.

Mohammed Asad / AP

An injured security official is carried from a police officers club in an upscale Cairo neighborhood, after fires were set by protesters angry about death sentences imposed on soccer fans over a deadly riot.

Egyptian protesters torched buildings in Cairo and tried unsuccessfully to disrupt international shipping on the Suez Canal, as a court ruling on a deadly soccer riot stoked rage in a country beset by worsening security.

The ruling enraged residents of Port Said, at the northern entrance of the Suez Canal, by confirming death sentences imposed on 21 local soccer fans for their role in the riot last year when more than 70 people were killed.

But the court also angered rival fans in Cairo by acquitting a further 28 defendants that they wanted punished, including seven members of the police force which is reviled across society for its brutality under deposed autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Security sources said one person had died in Cairo from the effects of tear gas and 65 people were injured, some by rubber bullets.

Saturday's protests and violence underlined how Islamist President Mohamed Mursi is struggling - two years after Mubarak's overthrow - to maintain law and order at a time of economic and political crisis.

On Thursday Egypt's election committee scrapped a timetable under which voting for the lower house of parliament should have begun next month, following a court ruling that threw the entire polling process into confusion.

The stadium riot took place last year at the end of a match in Port Said between local side Al-Masry and Cairo's Al-Ahly team. Spectators were crushed when panicked crowds tried to escape from the stadium after a pitch invasion by Al-Masry supporters. Others fell or were thrown from terraces.

Judge Sobhy Abdel Maguid, listing the names of the 21 Al-Masry fans, said the Cairo court had confirmed "the death penalty by hanging". He also sentenced five more people to life imprisonment while others out of a total of 73 defendants received shorter terms.

In Cairo, local Al-Ahly fans vented their rage at the acquittals, setting fire to a police social club, the nearby offices of the Egyptian soccer federation and a branch of a fast food chain, sending smoke rising over the capital.

A military helicopter scooped up water from the nearby Nile and dropped it on the burning buildings.

"Ultra" fans, the section of Al-Ahly supporters responsible for much of the violence, said they awaited retribution for those who had planned the Port Said "massacre".

"What is happening today in Cairo is the beginning of the anger. Wait for more if the remaining elements embroiled in this massacre are not revealed," the Ultras said in a statement.

PROTESTERS TARGET CANAL

Mohamed Muslemany / NBC News

A man rescues soccer trophies from the Egyptian Football Association after the building was torched by angry soccer fans.

In Port Said, where the army took over security in the city center from the police on Friday, about 2,000 residents who want the local fans spared from execution blockaded ferries crossing the Suez Canal. Witnesses said youths also untied moored speedboats used to supply shipping on the waterway, hoping the boats would drift into the path of passing vessels.

Military police recovered five speedboats and brought them back to shore, but two were still drifting, one witness said.

Authorities controlling the Canal, an artery for global trade and major income source for the Egyptian government, said through traffic had not been affected. "The canal ... is safe and open to all ships passing through it," Suez Canal Authority spokesman Tarek Hassanein told the MENA news agency.

The canal is a major employer in Port Said and, until now, protesters had declared it off-limits for the demonstrations apart from on one occasion when red balloons marked "SOS" were floated into the waterway.

In a separate security threat, the Interior Ministry ordered police in the Sinai peninsula to raise their state of emergency after receiving intelligence that jihadists might attack their forces there, MENA reported.

Officials have expressed growing worries about security in the desert region which borders Israel and is home to a number of tourist resorts. In August last year Islamist militant gunmen killed at least 15 Egyptian policemen in an assault on a police station on the border with Israel, before seizing two military vehicles and attempting to storm the frontier.

Last Thursday, Bedouin gunmen briefly held the head of U.S. oil major ExxonMobil in Egypt and his wife. The Britons, who had been heading for a Sinai resort, were released unharmed.

General unrest is rife as the Egypt's poor suffer badly from the economic crisis. Foreign currency reserves have slid to critically low levels and are now little more than a third of what they were in the last days of Mubarak.

The Egyptian pound has lost 14 percent against the dollar since the 2011 revolution and the budget deficit is soaring to unmanageable levels due to the huge cost of fuel and food subsidies. Egypt agreed a $4.8 billion loan with the International Monetary Fund last November, but Cairo requested a delay due to street violence the following month.

Analysts say the chances of an IMF deal are slim until the electoral chaos is sorted out, but question how much longer the government can hold out without international funding.

Unrest has plagued Port Said since the death sentences were first handed down to the Al-Masry supporters in January, with locals fighting pitched battles with police. At least eight people have been killed this week, including three policemen.

The Cairo court also jailed two senior police officers for 15 years on Saturday for their handling of the riot.

However, some fans in Cairo were happy with the confirmation of the death sentences. "This is a just verdict and has calmed us all down. Our martyrs have been vindicated," Said Sayyid, 21, told Reuters.

Related:

At least 30 die in clashes over Egypt soccer disaster verdict

'People are dying in front of us': Scores killed in riots after Egypt soccer match

This story was originally published on Sat Mar 9, 2013 4:12 AM EST

Carl De Souza / AFP - Getty Images

Kenyan police officers detain a man in the Somali district of Eastleigh in Nairobi on Monday.

GRAPHIC WARNING: Contains images which some viewers may find disturbing. 

Updated at 12:45 pm ET

Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images

A youth of non-Somali ethinicity is armed with stones on Monday during inter-ethnic clashes in Nairobi's Eastleigh suburb.

Reuters reports — Kenyan police fired tear gas to disperse rioters who attacked ethnic Somalis in the Nairobi district known as "Little Mogadishu" on Monday, hurling rocks and smashing windows after a weekend bomb attack there killed nine people.

The violence coincided with the start of voter registration for a general election in March, adding to security concerns ahead of the first national polls since 2007 when a dispute over the results fuelled ethnic slaughter that killed more than 1,200 people and forced some 300,000 from their homes.

Angry mobs broke into Somali homes and shops in anger at Sunday's attack on a minibus which killed at least nine people in Nairobi's Eastleigh district which is dominated by Somali Kenyans and their ethnic kin who have fled fighting in Somalia.

Read the full story.

Daniel Irungu / EPA

Angry ethnic Somali youths shout slogans as they face off Kenyan youths during a riot in the predominantly Somali neighborhood of Eastleigh in Nairobi on Monday.

Carl De Souza / AFP - Getty Images

A Kenyan Police officer with a guard dog tries to control a crowd in the Somali district of Eastleigh in Nairobi on Monday. Kenyan residents in Eastleigh turned on Somalis and attacked their shops and stalls, accusing them of being responsible for a bomb on Sunday.

Carl De Souza / AFP - Getty Images

A suspected looter is restrained by a policeman with a dog in the Somali district of Eastleigh in Nairobi on Monday.

Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images

A man bleeds after he was attacked with machetes by people of Somali ethnicity on Monday during inter-ethnic clashes in Nairobi's Eastleigh suburb.

Noor Khamis / Reuters

Mathare slum residents escape from a cloud of tear gas thrown by the police during the second day of skirmishes in the Eastleigh neighborhood of Kenya's capital Nairobi on November 19, 2012.

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