Politics

By CATHERINE TSAI and COLLEEN SLEVIN, Associated Press Aug 27, 2008

DENVER - A column of people three blocks long, led by members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, streamed from the Denver Coliseum on Wednesday in an anti-war protest march to the Pepsi Center, where the Democratic National Convention is being staged.  read more »

By MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press Aug 26, 2008

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thousands of anti-government demonstrators pushed into the Thai prime minister's office compound on Tuesday and tens of thousands rallied outside in the latest protest aimed at deposing a prime minister they accuse of close ties to his disgraced predecessor.  read more »

July 25, 2008 PGA North America

A group of activists blocked access to the Westin Bayshore marina on Wednesday July 23 to protest the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) summit. In doing so, they prevented PNWER delegates from boarding a 190-person luxury boat tour of the Vancouver harbour. Approximately 10 people stood with a banner reading People Not Profit! and prevented access to the luxury yacht though the public boardwalk.

Police arrived - surprisingly a bit late although the Westin Bayshore already had a relatively strong police and security presence - and threatened arrests, however given the tight timeframe that the PNWER delegates were on, the luxury boat tour was cancelled and the PNWER delegates were forced to retreat after about 20 minutes!  read more »

An examination of the effects of power and hierarchy on individuals, society and the world at large NOTE: I forgot to mention that the Indian woman speaking in the 2nd half is Arundhati Roy, author of "The God of Small Things"

Wed Jul 9,2008

DURBAN, South Africa (AFP) - A protest march by thousands of trade unionists against rising fuel and food costs closed down businesses and disrupted public transport in South Africa's port city of Durban on Wednesday.

While there were no reports of unrest, shops closed their shutters and the roads were largely deserted as the crowds marched on City Hall following earlier threats by activists to torch taxis who continued operating.  read more »

By JOSEPH COLEMAN, Associated Press Jul 5, 2008

SAPPORO, Japan - More than 1,000 people marched in northern Japan on Saturday to protest an upcoming summit of the top industrialized countries, and police arrested four protesters after a brief scuffle. No injuries were reported.  read more »

More than two dozen skated Saturday in hopes of sharing the road

By K.J. HASCALL summit daily news June 21, 2008  read more »

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA,Associated Press June 20, 2008

KATMANDU, Nepal - Students attacked several government vehicles and blocked traffic in Nepal's capital Friday to protest sharp rises in fuel prices, bringing transportation in the city to a standstill.

The students also demanded a 50-percent discount on public transportation fares.

It was the second day of violent protests pressing the government to immediately withdraw fuel price increases and reverse a recent decision that let public transport fees jump by as much as 35 percent.

College students in Katmandu walked out of classes and blocked major streets in Katmandu on Friday. They erected roadblocks and threw rocks at government vehicles.  read more »

by SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press June 13, 2008

DUBLIN, Ireland - It took years to negotiate, weighs in at 260 pages, is virtually unreadable — and now could be a dead letter.

Irish voters vetoed a painstakingly drafted treaty Friday that had been designed to streamline the European Union. Politicians from all of Ireland's major parties worked hard to sell the complex, deeply technical document to a confused and suspicious public.  read more »

By Ana Maria Fabbri June 9, 2008

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Thousands of supporters of leftist president Evo Morales protested outside the U.S. Embassy in La Paz on Monday, demanding the United States send home for trial two right-wing Bolivian politicians.

The protest followed comments by former Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain, who told a local radio station last week that a U.S. court had granted him political asylum.  read more »

June 2, 2008

DUJIANGYAN, China - Chinese police dragged away more than 100 parents Tuesday while they were protesting the deaths of their children in poorly constructed schools that collapsed in last month's earthquake.

The parents, many holding pictures of their dead children, were pulled down the street away from a courthouse in Dujiangyan, a resort city northeast of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu.  read more »

by Thanaporn Promyamyai May 31, 2008

BANGKOK (AFP) - About 1,200 riot police assembled on Saturday in central Bangkok, waiting for an order from the Thai prime minister who has threatened to forcibly break up an extended anti-government protest.

At least 2,000 protesters defied the threat and continued to block a major avenue in the city's historic district, with some activists fashioning improvised shields and batons out of plywood boards and wooden rods.  read more »

By VIBHUTI AGARWAL and KRISHNA POKHAREL
May 30, 2008 Wall Street Journal

NEW DELHI -- Clashes between Indian authorities and a group seeking preferential treatment in government hiring spilled into the capital, hampering business and paralyzing traffic.  read more »

By VOA News 30 May 2008

Thousands of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian fishermen have launched strikes, following the example of their French colleagues as they protested escalating fuel prices.

In Madrid, fishermen gathered outside the Environment, Agriculture and Fishing Ministry, where they handed out more than 20 tons of fresh fish free to passers-by.  read more »

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Demonstrators blocked several roads in and around Beirut with burning tires on Wednesday as part of an anti-government protest backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah-led opposition, witnesses said.

The main road leading to the capital's international airport was among routes blocked by the protesters.  read more »

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, Associated Press April 14, 2008

MEXICO CITY - Leftist lawmakers erected makeshift barricades Monday around the podium in Mexico's lower house of Congress, where they have been camped out for more than five days to protest the president's oil reform proposal.  read more »

By JULIANA BARBASSA and MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press April 9, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO - The Olympic torch was rerouted away from thousands of demonstrators and spectators who crowded the city's waterfront Wednesday to witness the flame's symbolic journey to the Beijing Games.  read more »

By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press April 9, 2008

KARACHI, Pakistan - Clashes between government supporters and opponents set off rioting in Pakistan's biggest city Wednesday, leaving seven people dead in the worst outburst of political violence since a new government took office.  read more »

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA, Associated Press April 9, 2008

KATMANDU, Nepal - Police opened fire on rampaging protesters in western Nepal on Wednesday, killing at least one a day ahead of a landmark election to chart the country's political future, a police official said.

The protesters, enraged by the slaying of a candidate a day earlier, began smashing stores and vandalizing buses in the mountainous Surkhet district, prompting police to fire at them with live ammunition, said the area's police chief, Ram Kumar Khanal.  read more »

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press April 8, 2008

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - U.N. peacekeepers fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a crowd that gathered outside the presidential palace Tuesday during the second consecutive day of protests over soaring food prices.

Fritz Longchamp, chief of staff to President Rene Preval, said some protesters were trying to break down the palace gates before the U.N. troops moved to establish a security perimeter around the building.  read more »

SANTIAGO, March 30 (Reuters) - A man died, a police officer was wounded, and 122 people were arrested in Santiago on Saturday night in riots marking the anniversary of the 1985 police slaying of two leftist brothers during the Pinochet dictatorship, police said.

A 28-year-old died after he was shot by protesters who accused him of being a police infiltrator, a police spokesman told Reuters.

A police officer was also serious wounded in the protests, he said. Angry demonstrations to mark the "Day of the Young Combatant," an unofficial commemoration of the anniversary, have become an annual event in the Chilean capital.  read more »

Dan Little says $4-a-gallon diesel fuel and other soaring costs forced him to temporarily halt his cattle-hauling business in Missouri several days ago, and he may have persuaded truckers across the country to pull their rigs off the road next week.  read more »

Thu Mar 27, 2008

SANAA (AFP) - Thousands of Yemenis gathered on Thursday to protest at rising prices, accusing the government of failing to curb the increasing cost of living and corruption, an AFP correspondent reported.Answering a call by the Common Forum, which includes five main opposition parties, over 10,000 protestors took to the streets of Sanaa chanting slogans denouncing the government.  read more »

By ROB HARRIS, Associated Press Mar 11, 2008

MANCHESTER, England - A city police chief who led an investigation into charges that Britain cooperated with secret CIA flights to transport terrorism suspects without formal proceedings has been found dead, his deputy said Tuesday.  read more »

By AVET DEMOURIAN, Associated Press March 1, 2008

YEREVAN, Armenia - Armenia's president imposed a state of emergency Saturday after police used tear gas and fired shots into the air to disperse demonstrators protesting alleged fraud in last month's presidential election.  read more »

By Carmel Crimmins

MANILA (Reuters) - Thousands of people streamed into Manila's financial district on Friday calling for the resignation of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in a colorful outpouring of placards, prayers and chants.

Police estimated between 13,000 and 15,000 people had gathered, but independent estimates put the crowd at over 25,000.

Priests in white cassocks recited the rosary, university students shouted "Fight for Truth" and office workers from nearby high-rise buildings sprinkled confetti.  read more »

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR., R.I.P. AVE ATQUE VALE!
Thomas Riggins

There is no doubt, from reading the New York Times obituary (2-28-2008), that Buckley was a talented and bright person. But his legacy, I fear, is mostly negative and his existence was a not a boon to humanity. A few quotes from the Times reveals why.  read more »

Feb. 24, 2008 

CUKURCA, Turkey (AP)- Kurdish rebels claimed they shot down a Turkish military helicopter during fighting in northern Iraq, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported, but there was no confirmation from the Turkish military.  read more »

By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Feb. 21, 2008

BELGRADE, Serbia - Angry Serbs broke into the U.S. Embassy and set fire to an office Thursday night as rioters rampaged through Belgrade's streets, putting an exclamation point of violence to a day of mass protest against Western support for an independent Kosovo.  read more »

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Feb 3, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya - Tanks rolled through Chad's capital on Sunday, turning the streets into a battle zone between the government and rebels littered with bodies. Fighting also raged in an area where some 420,000 refugees live near the border with Darfur.  read more »

Karachi, 31 Jan. (AKI )

Thousands of lawyers were holding rallies across Pakistan on Thursday to protest against the removal of former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other judges late last year.

Security was tightened and riot police were deployed in Karachi and other major cities as protesters shouted slogans like "Death to Dictatorship" and "Musharraf must go".  read more »

By Sebastien Berger Telegraph 28/01/2008

An anti-apartheid activist has rejected one of South Africa’s highest honours in protest at poverty in the country.

John Minto, a New Zealander, led demonstrations against a Springbok rugby tour of his country in 1981, some of which turned violent.  read more »

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Jan 27, 2008

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Protesters angry about electricity rationing clashed with Lebanese troops Sunday in Beirut's worst riots in a year, leaving seven people dead, hospital and security  read more »

by Thomas Riggins

Bill Gates is giving (by now gave) a speech at Davos in which he is calling upon the capitalists of the world to be kinder and to help the poor. But only if they can make a buck. So reports the Wall Street Journal in an article by Robert A. Guth (1-24-2008) from which all the direct quotes by Gates and others have been taken.

Gates says that "We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well." Those aspects are the exploitation of human labor power and the extraction of surplus value from workers. It will be a nice trick to see how this will happen.  read more »

AP - Wednesday, January 23, 2008

KATMANDU, Nepal - Protesters blocked traffic in the Nepalese capital on Tuesday, crippling life in the city of 2 million people to protest the government's move to boost the price of diesel and kerosene.

Demonstrators burned tires and set up barricades on the streets of Katmandu while chanting anti-government slogans.

The government increased the price of diesel and kerosene to 61 rupees (0.95 cents; 0.66 euro cents) per liter, a jump of 9 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

Diesel powers trucks used to transport fuel and food to this landlocked Himalayan nation.  read more »

BOOK NOTES: Larry Diamond’s THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY
Noted by Thomas Riggins

This new work by one of the directors of the NED [National Endowment for Democracy] has the subtitle “The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World.” A better subtitle would have been “The Struggle to Help the CIA Overthrow Governments Adverse to American Domination.”  read more »

By KATHARINE HOURELD, Associated Press Jan. 17, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya - Police fired tear gas and live rounds to break up opposition rallies in several Kenyan cities on Thursday, killing at least five protesters.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga said police are "on a killing spree" and put the day's death toll at seven demonstrators. But that figure could not be independently verified.  read more »

This Day Online From Reuben Buhari in Kaduna, Jan. 16, 2008

Four youths, including a pregnant woman were yesterday killed by Policemen in Kaduna when irate youths numbering thousands who claimed to have been without electricity for more than a year, took to the streets in protest.
Also injured in the demonstration, which took place in Sabon Tasha, were 18 policemen who were manhandled by the youth and had their uniforms and booths removed from them. The demonstration started the previous day when Ungwan Boro, a settlement in Sabon Tasha demonstrated by blocking the main road that runs through the area, totally blocking movement in and out.  read more »

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Jan 12, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya - The price for burning down a home: 500 shillings, or about $8. Double that to have someone hacked to death.

The price list comes from a leading Kenyan human rights group that says some of the worst violence in the country's deadly disputed presidential election is the work of militias paid and directed by politicians.  read more »

Thomas Riggins

Juan Gonzalez (Amy Goodman's co-anchor on Democracy Now) has broadsided the Obama campaign in a Daily News column: "I smell Obama baloney: Behind his smooth talk & giant 'Change' banners there lies a lot of the same old political nonsense" (1-11-08).

Gonzalez's problems with Obama boil down to this: While he proclaims "change" and leads youth as the Pied Piper of a new order, he is financially tied to the same old plutocrats who control the present system.  read more »

By John Bwakali Jan. 2, 2008 Phily IMC

Five days ago, on the 27th of December, I stood in a queue for six hours - from 5.30 AM to 11.30 AM, waiting for my turn to cast a vote in my country Kenya’s presidential, parliamentary and civic elections. When the votes were counted later that night, Raila Odinga, the opposition leader, began taking a near-unassailable lead. At one point, he led with almost one million votes. But somehow, Mwai Kibaki the incumbent president squeezed through a disputed victory. I can live with that.  read more »

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press Jan. 1, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya - A mob torched a church sheltering hundreds of people fleeing election violence Tuesday, killing up to 50 people — including many children — as four days of rioting and ethnic clashes marked one of the darkest times in Kenya's history.  read more »

By BISWAJEET BANERJEE, Associated Press Jan 1, 2007

LUCKNOW, India - Two assailants with guns and grenades ambushed a police recruitment center in northern India early Tuesday in an attack that killed seven police officers and a civilian, a police official said.

The assailants approached the gate of the station in Rampur and opened fire, killing two officers. The attackers then lobbed a grenade over the gate that killed five more officers, said Brij Lal, a senior police official in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

A rickshaw puller outside the gate was killed in the ensuing crossfire, Lal said.  read more »

By Andrew Cawthorne and Tim Cocks Dec. 30, 2007

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Shanty-towns blazed, ethnic gangs fought and the opposition planned further protests as President Mwai Kibaki began a second term in office on Monday after a disputed election that has convulsed Kenya.  read more »

By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Dec 30, 2007

KARACHI, Pakistan - Residents of Pakistan's largest city cautiously emerged from their homes Sunday and struggled to find food and fuel amid the blackened buildings, shattered glass and burnt-out vehicles littering the streets of Karachi.  read more »

by Thomas Riggins

Princeton University has reissued, as a "classic" Barry Goldwater's 1960 book "The Conscience of a Conservative." This book was BG's ideological basis for his 1964 run for president-- one of the biggest crushes ever for the Republican Party. But it laid the basis for the new ultra-right Republican Party that gave us Bush in 2000 (without the benefit of actually having to win an election.)

Here are a few quotes from the book. "Conservatism, we are told, is out of date. The charge is preposterous and we ought boldly to say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline." Not only is God a conservative, but nature herself has a soft spot for the Republicans.  read more »

By Thomas Riggins

There are the people's interests and there are the interests of the military industrial complex [MIC] and those who benefit from US imperialism or think they do. With respect to the war in Iraq, the majority of the American people are on record as wanting to end it and they do not support the military industrial complex and its imperial designs. The Republican party (with the exception of Ron Paul) is firmly in the hands of the MIC and can only be described as made up of pro war jingoists and sub rosa racists. The American people gave the Congress to the Democrats to end the the war. So, are the Democratic leaders working for the American people, or for the MIC?  read more »

by Stuart Williams Sun Dec 9, 2007

TEHRAN (AFP) - Hundreds of Iranian students held a new protest at Tehran University on Sunday, damaging the main gate to allow outsiders into the campus and denouncing  read more »

Thomas Riggins

The Millennium Development Agency set up by Congress three years ago to help poor countries around the world has been slow to develop programs and invest the money provided for it ( $4.8 Billion). It has spent only $155 million!

So now the Senate wants to cut the foreign aid budget (to make "savings"). It wants to slash by 50% the available funds. The problem is this. The MDA works out a 5 year development plan with a country and if the plan is approved, funds it. The country involved often spends millions of its own money to make the reforms and infrastructure necessary to get the US grant. Its like a little test of the sincerity of the applicant.  read more »

By Simon Gardner Wed Dec 5, 2007

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani lawyers abandoned their legal tomes and took to the streets of the capital on Wednesday, yelling slogans and punching the air in protest at President Pervez Musharraf's purge of the judiciary.  read more »