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Chicago bans anti-war march during NATO Summit

RT | 30 March, 2012

A judge has rejected the demands of anti-war activists for a march to be held in Chicago during a planned NATO summit.  The activists say the city’s arguments against the march defy logic.

­Anti-war activists filed a request to court after their initial demands for a march to be rescheduled were rejected by the City of Chicago.

Andy Thayer, an activist leader, says he will still be marching on May 20, the day the NATO summit opens.

“I can say definitively we are marching on May 20,” he noted, as quoted by Reuters. “We will hold a peaceful protest.”

The anti-war demonstrators originally planned to hold a march on May 19, the day another meeting of global leaders, the G8 Summit, closes in Chicago. However, when the summit’s venue was changed to Camp David, the activists decided to move their march a day forward to coincide with the start of the NATO summit.

But this request was rejected by the Chicago Transportation Department.

The department wrote back to Thayer, saying there were not enough on-duty police officers or other employees authorized to regulate traffic.

“The commissioner finds that there are not available at the time of the parade a sufficient number of on-duty police officers, or other city employees authorized to regulate traffic, to police and protect lawful participants in the parade and non-participants,” the assistant commissioner of the department wrote to Thayer.

But Thayer says the argument makes no sense – as the police assured the public it had enough personnel to deal with the protests on May 19.

“It defies logic,” Thayer remarked. “Ultimately the city is … pursuing a political agenda of denying meaningful First Amendment expression of anti-war views.”

The city did advise the protesters to change their itinerary, but the alternative route will not pass through Daley Plaza in the city center, and will take much longer.

Thayer argues that the city’s reluctance to allow the peaceful demo is part of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s efforts to silence dissent.

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Comments Off on Chicago bans anti-war march during NATO Summit

One Killed, 37 Injured, by Israeli troops Gunfire in Gaza Land Day Protests

By Ghassan Bannoura | IMEMC News | March 30, 2012

(Reuters/Ammar Awad and Ronen Zvulun)

A Palestinian 20 year old youth was killed, 37 injured, among them a journalist when Israeli troops opened fire at Palestinian protesters marking land day in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources reported that soldiers opened fire at protesters who marched up to the borders with Israel near Gaza city killing Mohamed Zakout, 20, and injuring 37 others. Among those injured were 3 in critical conditions and a local journalist.

In the West Bank Israeli troops injured 100 civilians including an American activist who marked land day in different parts of the West Bank today.

Marking the 36th anniversary of land day today Palestinians and their supporters marched for Jerusalem demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of the city. Protests were organized near the Israeli Lebanese borders as well as the borders with Jordan.

The Land day commemoration started in 1976, when Palestinian residents of the Galilee to the Negev protested Israel’s plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for security and settlement purposes. Israeli military and police attacked the protests leaving 6 killed, hundreds injured.

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Comments Off on One Killed, 37 Injured, by Israeli troops Gunfire in Gaza Land Day Protests

Jewish settlers attack Palestinian farmer and his children

Palestine Information Center – 31/03/2012

AL-KHALIL — Jewish settlers attacked a 67-year-old Palestinian farmer while tending to his field along with his family in Beit Ummar, to the north of Al-Khalil, on Saturday morning.

Mohammed Awad, the coordinator of the popular committee in Beit Ummar, told Quds Press that Mohammed Salibi, 67, was tending to his farm along with his sons and daughters when suddenly dozens of masked settlers from the nearby settlement of Beit Ayin ran toward them while throwing rocks.

He said that he rushed to protect his children, who were panicked, and took them away to their home leaving his tractor behind.

Salibi said that the savage attack progressed under the very eyes of the Israeli occupation soldiers (IOF), who maintain constant presence in the area and occupy high watchtowers that enable them watch whatever is going on nearby but did not move to protect him or his family.

Elsewhere in Al-Khalil, IOF soldiers kidnapped a Palestinian shepherd near Susiya settlement while watching for his sheep that were grazing nearby.

Ratib Al-Jibour, the coordinator of the popular committee in Yatta town, said that an IOF unit kidnapped Hammad Nawaja, 33, after claiming that he tried to cut the barbed wire near the settlement.

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | 3 Comments

Mali coup leader seeks foreign help against advancing rebels

Press TV – March 31, 2012

Facing strong international criticism for toppling the legitimate government of Mali, the leader of the recent coup d’état in the African country has called for foreign help.

The plea comes hours after Tuareg separatist rebels entered the strategic town of Kidal, 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the capital.

Speaking to the media outlets at a military barrack, which has now become the junta’s headquarters, the leader of the coup, Amadou Haya Sanogo, claimed, “Our army needs the help of Mali’s friends to save the civilian population and Mali’s territorial integrity.”

The coup junta is likely to face potential risk of being frozen out by the country’s foreign allies as the neighboring countries have threatened to impose possible economic sanctions on the landlocked country.

On March 22, renegade Malian soldiers led by Amadou Haya Sanogo toppled Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Toure in a coup and took control of government institutions.

The coup leaders said they mounted the coup out of anger at the government’s inability to contain the two-month-old Tuareg rebellion in north of the country.

Mali has been scene of rebellion by some separatist elements, namely Tuareg fighters in the north of the country, fighting the government to, in their terms “protect and progressively re-occupy the Azawad territory.”

Azawad is the tuareg name for the northern region of the country, covering the areas of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao.

The coup drew international condemnation. The African Union, the ECOWAS, the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the International Crisis Group, and the United Nations have all denounced the military takeover of the government in the West African country.

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Hollywood Attacks Hugo Chavez

By Razio Cazal, Ciudad CCS / Alba Ciudad |  March 30th 2012

It will be released this Friday 30 March and they’re selling it as “the comedy of the moment”. It’s about a house in a zoo, a Cameron Crowe movie starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, which sounds very attractive for selling well at the box office.

However, despite being a family film with a story full of adventures, it includes a scene out of context (in the first minute of the film), that aims to ridicule the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, as well as branding him as dangerous and a dictator.

The story, produced by 20th Century Fox, begins well when – with voiceover – the main character Benjamin Mee (played by Damon) is introduced as a journalist who has specialised in writing adventures. After this it’s indicated that he has interviewed “dangerous dictators”. Then a strange deviation is taken from the film’s main storyline when a man enters with a mole on his forehead and a red shirt being interview by Mee.

“Look, take this message to that American cowboy [in reference to ex US President George W Bush], that we already gave a ten billion dollar credit to China, in oil!” declares the supposed Hugo Chavez, who then stands, and with an angry expression shouts into the journalist’s microphone “Swallow that, Mr. Danger!”

Next Mee (very calmly) asks him what his favourite film is, to which the actor personifying Chavez responds, coolly, “Toy Story”. The aim of this scene to show a president with sudden and radical mood changes. The 27 second scene ends when Chavez asks his presidential train (also dressed in red shirts and hats) if they can remember if he likes number one or two of the film. “The second,” one of them responds.

The Subliminal Message

This is being sold to the public as a family friendly, adventure, and even comedy film, when with this message at the start it is inducing the world’s hate against the Venezuelan president. However, in addition to this, one of his presidential train (seated just behind Matt Damon) is shown with a visible tattoo on his neck below the beard, which would appear to be a marijuana plant.

This image could allow the world to understand that Venezuela and its government endorse the sale and consumption of drugs, when it is a film to entertain families, including children and adolescents.

What also makes an impression is that the distributors indicate in their publicity that the film is “based on an incredible real life story,” as it’s about a widowed writer and father to a fourteen year old male teenager and a seven year old girl, with whom he undertakes the adventure of moving to a house inside a zoo. That’s fine, but in looking at the life of Benjamin Mee, in a review he said that “he was used to interviewing experts, passing their advice through a sieve and choosing the essential parts of their opinions”. It’s not said anywhere that he interviewed “dangerous dictators”.

In twenty-seven seconds during the first minute of the film the public is manipulated with respect to the issue of the violence of the head of state toward the journalist, about the relation that Venezuela has with China (portraying it as a spending spree), and, of course, for some reason national oil is mentioned, adding to the subliminal image.

Minutes later Mee offers his boss McGinty a piece about the end of the world from the point of view of the generation who is going to save it. For it he would go to a volcanic eruption. His boss makes fun of this and offers Mee a column: “Life is like that now, if the newspaper goes bankrupt or is sold, you’ll still have a job”.

In response, Mee quits, but what they try to show is that the private media boss is compassionate and protective.

You can watch the scene here.

Translated by Ewan Robertson for Venezuelanalysis.com

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment

Iran Bashing, Terrorism and Who Chose The Chosen People, Anyway?

| March 30, 2012

Dedicated to the long-suffering Palestinians and Iranians who have been sidelined by the United Nations in favour of the Nuclear Apartheid State of Zionist Israel in the most blatant exercise in International Double Standards that our world has ever known.

This video demonstrates that the United States is not a democracy, it is a bribeocracy, largely controlled by Zionists. But citizens of other nations need not be complacent, for there is much evidence to suggest that the same pressures are being brought to bear on their politicians and officials to support Israel’s excesses, and an Internet search will reveal that the first ever European Jewish Parliament held its inaugural meeting early in February, 2012; something that the mainstream media seemed reluctant to publicise.

Anthony Lawson, March 31st, 2012

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | 3 Comments