[Al Jazeera] Tunisian police have used tear gas and batons to break up protests demanding the resignation of the government in the most violent confrontation for weeks with pro-democracy demonstrators.
A demonstration in central Tunis by about 200 people on Friday called for the resignation of the transitional government and "a new revolution".
The demonstrators, yelling slogans such as "Get out!" and "The government still works for [ousted president Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali", faced off for 20 minutes against a police cordon on the central Habib Bourguiba Avenue.
The police then charged, firing tear gas canisters and causing panic among demonstrators, mainly youths, and pedestrians who were in the neighbourhood and tried to flee for shelter.
Public outcry
Farhat Rajhi, Tunisia's former minister of the interior, called for calm earlier on Friday after causing an outcry with his statement that a "coup d'etat" could take place in the country.
"I have called for calm on Tunisian radios. My statements were purely hypothetical and not directed at anybody and I am not responsible for interpretations," Rahji told the AFP news agency.
Protesters said the statement had undermined their confidence in the North African country's interim administration and raised suspicions that members of the former regime could be meddling behind the scenes.
"We are here to demand the departure of this government, which is dishonest," Sonia Briki, one of the hundreds of protesters in the centre of Tunis, said.
"Everything is clear now. We want them to step down so we can have a government whose members are just at the service of the people."
Police beat photographers with batons and confiscated cameras as they tried to cover the protest.
Tunisia's interim rulers have promised an election in July for an assembly that will draw up a new constitution.
But tensions rose when Rajhi said there could be a coup by Ben Ali loyalists if Islamists won the election. Tunisia's main Islamist group, al-Nahda, is expected to do well in some regions.
The government distanced itself from Rajhi's comments, but not before protesters had gathered in Tunis and in provincial cities to demand its resignation.
Some said the government was trying to use the threat of a coup to derail steps to democracy.
A common thread running through uprisings across the Arab world sparked by the one in Tunisia has been unease among secularists and in the West about whether democracy will open the door to Islamic rule.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/07/2011 00:00 ||
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""coup d'etat" could take place in the country."
But, But, you just had one of those. How is that working for you there?
Same as it is "working" in Egypt. Which reminds me, you should think about like forming a government or something soon cause everyone is waiting - and obviously protesting.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Ugandan opposition leader Kiiza Besigye left the Nairobi Hospital Friday afternoon.
A hospital spokesperson said Dr Besigye was considered strong enough and well enough to be discharged from the hospital. Other sources confirmed that he would be staying in Nairobi for a while where he has been joined by his wife Winnie Byanyima. There was indication that arrangements were being made for the opposition leader to address the news conference Saturday.
Dr Besigye was admitted to the hospital last Friday after suffering multiple injuries during demonstrations over high food and fuel prices. Ugandan authorities, who had refused him to fly to Kenya for treatment, later relented and he boarded a Kenya Airways flight at Entebbe Airport an hour later. A family source said he was in critical condition.
Dr Besigye will undergo surgery to clean his eyes from inside, the source said.
The pepper sprayed into his eyes severely affected him and doctors have said his bloodstream was also affected.
He has received intravenous medication to try to get rid of pepper from his blood which may also have affected oxygen levels in his blood system.
The opposition leader can only walk with assistance and his arm is still in a cast following the gunshot injuries he sustained two weeks ago.
It also emerged yesterday that Nairobi doctors found out that Dr Besigye had suffered rib cage damage while he was hauled unconscious into the back of a police pick-up. The Nairobi Hospital did not release an official statement on his condition.
Dr Besigyes search for treatment came after Ugandan riot police clobbered him in his car before one of them sprayed his eyes, chest and back with pepper spray.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/07/2011 00:00 ||
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[The Nation (Nairobi)] A Swaziland court today denied bail to two activists tossed in the slammer in pro-democracy protests last month on charges of illegal possession of explosives.
Maxwell Dlamini, president of the Swaziland Students' Union, and Musa Ngubeni, a member of the banned opposition People's United Democratic Front (PUDEMO), were tossed in the slammer on April 13 in a clampdown on protests against the government of King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch.
During a ruling lasting less than five minutes, magistrate Florence Msibi said their release would undermine public security.
But defence attorney Musa Mkhwanazi said he plans to appeal the decision to the High Court.
The Swaziland Democracy Campaign condemned the ruling as a "travesty of justice", saying the pair poses no danger to society.
But according to the police, detonators and electric cables were found in a bag that the two were carrying on the day of the protests.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/07/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Alassane Ouattara ...the current president-for-life of Ivory Coast. He actually beat his predecessor in an election before having to eject him from the presidential palazzo.... has been sworn in as Ivory Coast president in a ceremony after months of political violence in the world's leading cocoa producer followed his victory in last November's elections.
Ouattara, 69, was sworn in at the presidential palace on Friday by the head of the Constitutional Council, Paul Yao N'Dre, watched by members of his government, the armed forces and the diplomatic community.
'New era'
"It's the start of a new era of reconciliation and unity between all the daughters, and all the sons of our dear Ivory Coast," Ouattara said in a brief speech after taking the oath of office.
Ouattara has spent most of the last five months barricaded inside a hotel because Laurent Gbagbo ... Former President-for-Life of Ivory Coast from 2000 to 2011. Laurent lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and he refused to vacate the presidential palace. French troops assisted the Oattara forces in extricating him from his Fuhrerbunker... , the country's longtime ruler who had lost the election, refused to cede office.
He was surrounded by troops loyal to Gbagbo, who used the army to oppress the population.
More than 1,000 civilians are estimated to have died in violence before Gbagbo was removed militarily last month.
He is now under house arrest in a remote town 700km north of the country's largest city, Abidjan.
It was N'Dre who had refused to confirm Ouattara's win in the November 28 election.
N'Dre invalidated results from Ouattara strongholds in order to hand victory to Gbagbo. But on Thursday he said the court now accepted Ouattara had won the election.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/07/2011 00:00 ||
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In Northern Virginia, Manassas, near the battlefield.
Federal immigration officials say that Cruz, who this week plead? pled? pleaded guilty to racketeering in federal court in Richmond, was a key player in one of the largest and most sophisticated document mills they have uncovered. His Manassas operation was part of 19 [mills? rings? operations? scams? Couldn't make up his/her mind?]
that ran in 11 states, stretching from Nashville to Providence, R.I., officials said. Each year, the ring produced between 10,000 and 15,000 fake documents. They wired at least $1 million to the bosses in Mexico.
Each cell's success depended heavily on runners who sought out customers at grocery stores, laundromats and bars, authorities said. Sometimes they even passed out business cards advertising their services.
In all, 27 people were arrested on a range of charges including making and selling false documents, gun possession, racketeering, kidnapping, and, in one case, murder. Sixteen people, including Cruz, pleaded guilty in connection with the ring. Two defendants are fugitives in Mexico. Capitalism is alive and well in Messico. My employer hires a lot of spanish-speaking labor, and they all have documents. Shut down the fake ID rings and many businesses will not hire illegals that seem to be legal.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/07/2011 13:08 ||
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They wired at least $1 million to the bosses in Mexico.
Who are the bosses? And why is this being run out of Mexico, instead of being a local initiative? I'm offended. ;-)
[An Nahar] Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Friday he had ordered the shutdown of a nuclear power plant southwest of Tokyo because it is located close to a dangerous tectonic faultline, Agence La Belle France Presse reported.
The news comes eight weeks after a massive quake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant northeast of Tokyo, sparking the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl a quarter-century ago.
Seismologists have long warned that a major quake is long overdue in the Tokai region southwest of Tokyo where the Hamaoka plant is located, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Tokyo in Shizuoka prefecture.
"As prime minister, I have ordered, through trade minister (Banri) Kaieda, that Chubu Electric Power halt operations of all the reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant," Kan said at a televised presser.
Two reactors, numbers four and five, are currently operating at Hamaoka.
"The relevant authorities, including the science ministry, have shown that the possibility of a magnitude-8.0 earthquake hitting the area of the Hamaoka plant within the next 30 years is 87 percent," he said.
"This is a decision made for the safety of the people when I consider the special conditions of the Hamaoka plant."
Japanese anti-nuclear campaigners have long argued that the seismically unstable area, where two continental plates meet, makes the plant the most dangerous atomic facility in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/07/2011 00:00 ||
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Iff the Perts are going to be predicting stronger Solar storms, etc. as per GWCC, then JAPAN should prep now for corresponding Quake(s) potentially stronger in magnitude than the TOHOKU/SENDAI EVENT.
* OTOH TOPIX > MASSIVE ASTEROID HURTLING TOWARDS EARTH, to pass between the Moon + Terra Firma this coming November.
"DOOMSDAY/APOCALYPTIC" SUICIDES IN TAIWAN = PRE-COGNITION???
Athens Mulls Plans for New Currency
The debt crisis in Greece has taken on a dramatic new twist. Sources with information about the government's actions have informed SPIEGEL ONLINE that Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone. The common currency area's finance ministers and representatives of the European Commission are holding a secret crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night.
Greece's economic problems are massive, with protests against the government being held almost daily. Now Prime Minister George Papandreou apparently feels he has no other option: SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou's government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency.
An unmanned Atlas 5 rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Saturday to put the first satellite of the Defense Department's new missile-warning system into orbit.
Inside was a Geo-1 satellite, built by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, containing a $1.3 billion Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS). The satellite, the first of four scheduled for launch over the next five years, is intended to provide the U.S. military with early notice of missile launches and other reconnaissance services.
The $17.6 billion SBIRS constellation, which includes sensors on host satellites, will augment and eventually replace the military's Defense Support Program satellites, which have been operating since 1970. The satellites scour the planet for heat trails produced by flying rockets and missiles.
Over the next nine days, Geo-1's position will be fine tuned so that it ends up in an orbit about 22,000 miles above the planet.
In addition to scanning for missile launches, Geo-1 has instruments that can home in on areas of interest for tactical reconnaissance, officials said.
Geo-2, the second in the constellation, is expected to be ready to launch next year, said the mission operations director for United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin partnership that builds the Atlas rockets.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
