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Defiant protesters have rallied in central Minsk again in a sign that even a threat to use the army was not enough to quell the uprising against authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko. Unofficial estimates put the crowd that formed outside the parliament at 150,000 people or more.
Demonstrations have been held in the capital and other Belarusian towns since 9 August, when an election which protesters describe as rigged granted Lukashenko a sixth term in office. Demonstrators are demanding he quit after 26 years in power, and that new elections be held.
Defence minister’s threat to call in army fails to quell protests sparked by disputed election
Defiant protesters have flooded central Minsk again in a sign that even a threat to use the army was not enough to quell the uprising against Belarus’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko.
The vast square outside the parliament was turned into a sea of red and white by protesters waving the traditional Belarusian flag adopted by the protest movement and chanting “resign!” and “put Lukashenko in a police van!”. Unofficial estimates put the crowd at 150,000 people or more.
Federal agents clashed with protesters, accusing them of damaging vehicles and throwing projectiles
Smoke filled the air outside a police precinct in Portland, Oregon early on Saturday, as authorities worked to clear a crowd accused of damaging patrol vehicles, throwing projectiles and pointing lasers at officers.
Bloc declares solidarity with protests against Lukashenko’s grip on power as it vows to press ahead with sanctions
The EU has said it does not recognise Alexander Lukashenko as Belarus’s president and vowed to press ahead with sanctions on his regime, following an emergency summit in response to 10 days of protests that have shaken the autocrat’s 26-year grip on power.
“The European Union stands in solidarity with the people of Belarus,” said Charles Michel, the European council president, who convened the last-minute meeting of the EU’s 27 leaders. Belarus’s presidential elections had been “neither free nor fair and did not meet international standards”, he said. “We don’t recognise the results presented by the Belarus authorities.”
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, walked off stage to chants of 'step down' after a speech to workers at the Minsk tractor works on Monday. The factory is one of the large state-run industrial plants that are the pride of his Soviet-style economic model and core support base. During his speech, Lukashenko said he would be willing to hand over power after a referendum in an apparent attempt to pacify mass protests and strikes
Alexander Lukashenko’s grip on power in Belarus has taken a further hit, as workers heckled him during a visit to a factory on the outskirts of Minsk.
The visit to the the state-owned MZKT military vehicles factory on Monday was meant to show the Belarusian president was still in control and retained the support of workers at the vast factories that are the backbone of the country’s neo-Soviet economy, a day after the biggest rally in the country’s recent history against his rule.
People gathered in Bangkok on Sunday for one of the biggest demonstrations against the country's military rulers since the 2014 coup. The student-led movement has three core demands: hold new elections, amend the constitution and end the intimidation of government critics
Tens of thousands of Belarusians assemble in Minsk as an extraordinary week of rising sentiment comes to a close. ‘I made my choice and my vote was thrown in the bin, so I’ll keep coming out until our president leaves,’ said one demonstrator. Seven days after the country’s authoritarian ruler, Alexander Lukashenko, claimed to have secured 80% of the vote in a presidential election, his legitimacy is in tatters and his regime faces its biggest crisis since he came to power 26 years ago
The protest was one of the biggest since the 2014 coup, and follows a month of almost daily rallies that have drawn support from high school and university students across the country.
Pro-democracy rallies continue with large event due to be held in Bangkok on Sunday
A prominent student protest leader in Thailand has been arrested on charges of sedition as pro-democracy rallies continued across the country.
Parit Chiwarak, 22, whose arrest was livestreamed on social media, was stopped on the outskirts of Bangkok on Friday night. As he was physically carried into a car, he raised his hand in a three-fingered salute – a gesture borrowed from the Hunger Games that is used by protesters and symbolises opposition to the military-backed government.
Savage attacks by prison guards and riot police follow election protests as Lukashenko holds on to power
People detained in Belarus during the past few days of unrest have told the Guardian about systematic mistreatment and abuse, suggesting that guards and riot police loyal to Alexander Lukashenko’s regime have terrorised thousands of Belarusians caught up in the crackdown on recent protests.
Those detained in police stations, jails and makeshift prisons spoke of ritual beatings, up to 55 women being crammed into a cell meant for two people and men who were kept in stress positions for hours on end.Leaked audio files and other testimony has corroborated the reports of widespread torture as Lukashenko tries to hold on to power.
Alexander Lukashenko has cut off entire population’s internet to try to stifle election dissent
As he fights for his political survival, Alexander Lukashenko has taken a big gamble by cutting off the internet across most of Belarus.
Belarusians seeking to protest against his government have been mostly cut off from the outside world: mobile internet has been throttled and popular messaging apps have been disabled, leaving demonstrators scrambling to find wifi connections and working VPNs or proxies to get online and then sharing what news they can find.
More than 100 arrested after overnight looting on shopping district as mayor decries ‘an assault on our city’
Unrest and violence erupted in the center of Chicago early on Monday after weeks of bubbling tension in a number of neighborhoods across the city and protests on Sunday after a man was shot by police on the south side.
The main opposition candidate in Belarus’s election has rejected the official results that gave President Alexander Lukashenko a landslide victory and her team has vowed to stay in the country to campaign for a change of power.
“I will believe my own eyes – the majority was for us,” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told reporters in the capital, Minsk, on Monday, after widespread reports of vote-tampering in Sunday’s election.
New York prosecutors argue they are justified in seeking Trump’s tax returns because of public reports of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.”
Expanding on our earlier post, lawyers from the Manhattan district attorney’s office argued that in court on Monday.
Manhattan District Attorney District Attorney Cyrus Vance is seeking eight years of the Republican president’s personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records, other than part of the investigation is related to payoffs made to women to keep them quiet about alleged affairs with Trump.
In their court filing Monday, though, attorneys for Vance said Trump’s arguments that the subpoena was too broad stemmed from “the false premise” that the probe was limited to so-called “hush-money” payments.
Trump just answered questions from reporters at the White House, expanding on his threat to ban Tik Tok, disagreeing with Fauci, and again promoting hydroxychloroquine, even as top administration officials acknowledge that there is no evidence the drug is an effective treatment for the virus.
Responding to a handful of questions on Monday afternoon, Trump said the social media platform Tik Tok must be sold to Microsoft or another company by 15 September or it will be shut down in US. He also said the Treasury should receive payment as a portion of any deal between the social media platform and a US company.
German leaders are divided over whether to restrict the rights of demonstrators, after tens of thousands of people who took to the streets of Berlin at the weekend failed to abide by hygiene and distancing rules.
According to officials, up to 20,000 people took part in demonstrations against the government’s coronavirus restrictions at different locations across Berlin on Saturday, amalgamating for a joint rally later in the day. Organisers said up to 1.3 million people took part, a figure that police denied.
Federal agents accused of behaving like an 'occupying army' are said to be pulling out of Portland, Oregon, in an embarrassing climbdown by the White House, but many protesters are sceptical over whether the agents will actually withdraw from the city.
The force, which have been dubbed by some as 'Donald Trump’s troops', were sent in by the president a month ago to end what he called 'anarchy' during Black Lives Matter protests sparked after the police killing of George Floyd.
The Guardian's Chris McGreal looks at what Trump was hoping to gain by sending paramilitaries into the city, if and how they will leave, and how their presence has fuelled anger among most residents
The Hong Kong government has postponed its upcoming elections for one year, citing the growing coronavirus outbreak in the territory but sparking immediate accusations that the pandemic was being used as a pretext to suppress democracy.
The city’s leader, Carrie Lam, announced on Friday she had invoked colonial-eraemergency regulations to delay the 6 September vote to 5 September 2021, saying it was the “hardest decision I have made in the past seven months”,but had the full support of the Chinese central government.
As the economy falters, President Emmerson Mnangagwa blames foreign interference, issues warnings to ‘rogue Zimbabweans’
Hundreds of police and soldiers have been deployed on the streets of cities across Zimbabwe ahead of planned anti-corruption demonstrations on Friday.
Recent weeks have seen rising tensions in the poor southern African country as security agencies have sought to stifle widespread anger at soaring prices, inadequate public services and allegations of graft at the highest levels of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.