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Thousands Protest in Bolivia Over Rising Prices


VOANews
Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:24 UTC
boliva protest
© APMembers of Bolivia's Central Workers union march to protest rising food costs in La Paz; the smoke is from small packages of dynamite set off by the protesters, Feb. 18, 2011

Thousands of people have rallied in La Paz, Bolivia to demand higher salaries as the cost of food and fuel increases.

Unions led Friday's demonstrators, who marched in the streets of the capital to protest the cost of living. Some of the protesters set off sticks of dynamite while taking part in the fifth day of protests in the Andean nation.

The protest comes one month after President Evo Morales said he planned to raise fuel prices eventually, despite rescinding a decree to do so. Morales has said the increase is necessary to level prices in the region so government subsidies do not pay for gasoline that is smuggled in from other countries.
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Ambulance

Emergency: Bahraini Doctor Pleads For Help too Many Casualties to Count Hospitals Can't Cope

91177info
YouTube
Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:41 UTC
Bahraini troops shot at protesters near Pearl Roundabout and wounded many, a doctor of Salmaniya hospital said, a day after police forcibly cleared a protest camp from the traffic circle in Manama.


Dr. Ghassan said: "There are many casualties with head wounds."

The demonstrators made for Pearl Roundabout, where army troops who took it over after the police raid on Thursday opened fire.

The Bahraini military has opened machinegun fire on protesters who were trying to reach hospital, injuring hundreds, in what appears to be an attempted massacre, medics say.

The Army has prevented ambulances and medics from reaching those wounded amid massive pro-democracy protests in Bahrain, Dr. Ghasam, a resident at Salmaniyeh hospital in Manama, told Press TV on Friday.

He said that the protesters were marching to hospital in silence to visit those wounded in the previous rallies, when they were ambushed by troops waiting near the hospital.

"They did not even chant anti-government slogans, they wanted to visit those injured on Thursday," Dr. Ghasem said.

He maintained that the massacre was planned in advance.

"We need help! Our staff is entirely overwhelmed. They are shooting at people's heads. Not at the legs. People are having their brains blown out," Dr. Ghasam said.

He also compared the situation at the hospital to a war zone.
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Che Guevara

China: Activists Arrested; Regime Fears Protests Like Those in Middle East


Agence France-Presse
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:04 UTC
Police officers stand guard-China
© AFPPolice officers stand guard near a restaurant which was a planned protest site for 'Jasmine Revolution' in Beijing.
Beijing - Several top Chinese rights activists have disappeared into police custody as a web campaign urged angry citizens to mark the Middle East's "Jasmine Revolution" with protests, campaigners said Sunday.

Up to 15 leading Chinese rights lawyers and activists have disappeared since Saturday amid a nationwide police mobilisation, according to activists, while the government appeared to censor Internet postings calling for the demonstrations.

"We welcome... laid off workers and victims of forced evictions to participate in demonstrations, shout slogans and seek freedom, democracy and political reform to end 'one party rule'," one Internet posting said.

The postings, many of which appeared to have originated on overseas websites run by exiled Chinese political activists, called for protests in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and 10 other major Chinese cities.

Protesters were urged to shout slogans including "We want food to eat", "We want work", "We want housing", "We want justice", "Long live freedom", and "Long live democracy".
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Attention

US: 70,000 demonstrate at Wisconsin capitol for workers' rights - Tea Party counter-rally rides out to meet them!

D. Abner, K. Dolak, C. Bury & O. Katrandjian
ABC News
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 12:03 UTC
Image
As protest in Wisconsin stretch into its sixth day on Sunday, union members and supporters are have begun to arrive in both Madison and Green Bay, where a smaller pro-union rally will take place outside Packers Stadium.

Meanwhile, Governor Scott Walker said that the state Democrats senators who have fled Wisconsin to protest a vote on his controversial legislation to reduce public employee bargaining rights have "failed to do their jobs," and that he expects then to concede this week.

"If you want to participate in democracy, you've got to be in the arena, and the arena is right here in Madison, Wisconsin," Walker said on "Fox News Sunday.

"My hope is that cooler minds will prevail and by some time earlier this coming week they'll show up for their job," Walker added. "Democracy is not about hiding out in another state. It's about showing up here in the capital and making the case there, and for us, we're willing to take this as long as it takes."

More than seventy-thousand protestors descended on Wisconsin's capitol yesterday, angry at Walker's bill to slash their union benefits and eliminate bargaining rights, a plan that has the backing of the Republican controlled state Senate. Pro-union protesters were joined by supporters of Walker's bill -- many of them bused in by tea party groups -- who support efforts against the 14 Democratic state senators who are hiding in Illinois and preventing the bill from coming to a vote on Tuesday.
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Che Guevara

U.S. Protests, Teacher Walkouts Mount in Wisconsin. Milwaukee Schools Closed

Tom Eley
World Socialist Web Site
Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:08 UTC
protest
The movement of Wisconsin workers and youth against budget-cutting and attacks on government workers continued to spread on Friday, with tens of thousands more teachers and students walking out of their classrooms, while the major demonstration in Madison continued unabated.

Demonstrations that began on Monday with an unexpectedly large march of 1,200 University of Wisconsin graduate and undergraduate students have since drawn hundreds of thousands more into struggle. The crowd surrounding the capitol building on Tuesday grew to between 13,000 and 20,000, and demonstrations have been estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. A major demonstration is also expected today.

Friday may have been the largest demonstration yet. Buses brought an estimated 11,000 students and university workers to Madison from the University of Wisconsin campuses at Milwaukee, Eau Claire, La Crosse, Superior, River Falls, Green Bay, and Stout, while teachers and government workers continued to arrive in large numbers.
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Heart - Black

Update: Libya death toll tops 173, says Human Rights Watch


Raw Story
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 12:00 UTC
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Human Rights Watch said Sunday that the countrywide death toll in Libya had reached 173.

Local residents told Al Jazeera that 200 people had died in Benghazi alone.

Tripoli - The death toll has topped 100 from an iron-fisted crackdown on protests in east Libya, Human Rights Watch said, as demonstrators on Sunday again braved the streets of the restive city of Benghazi.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera television on a patchy telephone line, a Benghazi resident warned that the flashpoint city was turning into a scene of "out of sight massacres".

"It feels like an open warzone between protesters and security forces," said Fathi Terbeel, a protest organiser in Benghazi. "Our numbers show that more than 200 people have been killed ... God have mercy on them."
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Vader

Shock video: Bahrain's army deliberately murders peaceful protesters with automatic weapons

shaffeem
YouTube
Fri, 18 Feb 2011 11:22 UTC
Bahrain protesters gunned down in streets.

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Wolf

'Scumbag!': Judge behind 'cash for kids' scheme gets an earful


Raw Story
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 10:41 UTC
In the trials of those behind the "kids for cash" scheme discussed in Michael Moore's film Capitalism: A Love Story, one recently convicted judge, who sentenced countless innocent children to a private juvenile detention center, recently got an earful from a furious mother whose son committed suicide.

This video is from CNN, broadcast Feb. 19, 2011.

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Pharoah

Dictators are "Disposable": The Rise and Fall of America's Military Henchmen

Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 07:27 UTC
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History Repeats Itself? From the "King of Java" to the Pharaoh of Egypt

From Suharto to Mubarak: History Repeats Itself?

President Suharto of Indonesia was deposed following mass protests in May 1998.

The Western media in chorus pointed to "democratization": the "King of Java" had been deposed by mass protests, much in the same way as Hosni Mubarak, described by today's media as "The Pharaoh of Egypt".

The 1997 Asian Crisis

The 1997 Asia financial crisis which served to impoverish millions of people was instigated by institutional speculators. It was a process of deliberate market manipulation. It consisted in destabilizing national currencies, through "short selling".

The Indonesian rupiah was destabilized, food prices skyrocketed, real wages collapsed by more than fifty percent. Nike workers in export manufacturing were receiving $45 a month before the crisis. In the wake of the devaluation of the rupiah, their wages plummeted to less than $20 a month.
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Stormtrooper

Libyan revolt death toll put at 200


Press TV
Sun, 20 Feb 2011 07:11 UTC
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Nearly 200 Libyan demonstrators are feared dead following government crackdown on protesters in five days of pro-democracy revolt against the 42-year rule of Libya's Moammar Gaddafi.

UK's Independent newspaper reported Sunday that government crushing of the protests in the eastern Libyan port city of Benghazi has left up to 200 people dead.

Earlier reports put the death toll from the anti-government uprising at 100 people.

Libya's crackdown on massive demonstrations turned bloodier as government forces opened fire on protesters in Benghazi on Saturday, leaving at least 15 people dead.

Medics said snipers opened fire on thousands of people on Saturday as protesters gathered to mourn the 35 protesters killed by security forces on Friday, Associated Press reported.

In addition to the 15 killed, scores more were reported wounded during the Saturday violence. Moreover, many of the victims in the incident are reported to have been hit in the head.
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