Public support for the demonstrations is over 70%, with protesters taking to the streets for various reasons.
The student movement that led the demonstrations is crumbling.The public's longstanding qualms about the encroachment of Chinese influence are again becoming evident.
Whoever is behind the demonstrations is tapping into widespread public discontent with the way Mr. Calderón's government is waging its antidrug war.
Like everyone, Lost in Showbiz has spent this week looking aghast at events in Libya: the violence, the bloodshed – and Gaddafi's insistence that everyone taking part in the demonstrations is on "hallucination pills", as if the whole thing is being orchestrated by Hawkwind.
In some cases witnesses reported them chanting slogans demanding an end to Chinese rule, however, and according to the friend of a monk who killed himself in March, the aim of the demonstrations is "to attract international attention to [the] struggle".
Under international law, meanwhile, the extent of Hamas's role in organizing the demonstrations is irrelevant.
