KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Insurgents armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a small NATO base here on Thursday, breaking an unusual period of calm in this volatile city and setting off a standoff between the attackers and coalition and Afghan forces that was continuing late into the evening.
The suicide of the other monk, Phuntsog, at the Kirti Monastery, in a nearby prefecture in Sichuan, set off a violent standoff between local residents and paramilitary police, who eventually detained 300 monks.
The creation of the special court, however, set off a bitter standoff between the country's election authorities, who declared the court illegal, and the nation's attorney general, Mohammed Ishaq Aloko, who had convened the court on the president's orders and who has brought a series of criminal charges against election officials, alleging corruption.
In recent years, the islands have been the site of a series of spats between China and Japan, including a collision between a Chinese fishing boat and a Japan Coast Guard vessel in 2010 that set off a tense diplomatic standoff.
But the building of what looked like a small barn in the middle of a park two blocks from the White House set off a series of arrests and a standoff with the police that lasted into the evening.
That emergency police call set off a chain of events that led to a standoff ending when officers fatally shot Mr. Bah — just days before his 29th birthday — as he plunged a 13-inch knife into two officers, slicing their protective vests and prompting one officer to yell, "He's stabbing me; shoot him," Mr. Browne said.
Squabbling yet again over retransmission fees, with a standoff between CBS and Time Warner Cable that could set off a blackout, driving audiences to other ways of viewing.
Unlike the fight in Congress last year over whether to grant China permanent normal trade relations, when the battle resonated only lightly outside the capital, the current standoff appears to have set off a grass-roots response that could affect the way Washington reacts.
The standoff held until 13 March, when Kurdish separatists set off a car bomb in the capital, killing 37 people.
The budget fight that led to the first government shutdown in 17 years did not just set off a round of recriminations among Republicans over who was to blame for the politically disastrous standoff.
