Donald Trump has suggested Black Lives Matters protesters want to pull down statues of Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Speaking at a press conference with the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, Trump reiterated his desire to sign an executive order making vandalising monuments punishable with up to 10 years in prison
Senate Democrats block Republican police reform bill – live
Continue reading...Dizzee Rascal shut down Piers Morgan when the Good Morning Britain host asked him about the Black Lives Matter movement. 'You're not going to do this to me mate,' the rapper replied. 'I've got a bunch of views ... but it's really nice and sunny outside today and I can't really be bothered to answer all of this this morning'
Many have attempted to claim that ‘things are better here’ for black people than in the US. This ignores both Europe’s colonial past and its own racist present. By Gary Younge
Continue reading...Pyotr Verzilov seized at his apartment by unidentified men who broke down his door
The Russian state news agency Tass has said that a prominent member of the protest group Pussy Riot has been detained by the police anti-extremism division.
The Mediazona website reported that Pyotr Verzilov was seized at his apartment by unidentified men who broke down the door on Sunday morning.
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It has been seven weeks since Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis took a coronavirus “victory lap”, pressing ahead with a swift reopening program while berating the media for a “doom and gloom” approach he said bore little relation to reality.
“We haven’t seen an explosion of new cases,” DeSantis insisted during a 29 April news conference, a day on which the state’s Covid-19 tally increased by 347.
Robert Mueller and his investigators thought it possible Donald Trump lied to them about conversations with Roger Stone, according to previously redacted sections of the special counsel’s report which were were released on Friday night.
The release, part of litigation over portions of Mueller’s findings which remain secret, was largely overshadowed by US attorney general William Barr’s announcement of the resignation of the attorney for the southern district of New York, Geoffrey Berman, who then denied he was stepping down.
Continue reading...Protest walk organised by Extinction Rebellion began in Birmingham and will stop off at protest sites on way to London
Eighty anti-HS2 protesters have started a 125-mile “Rebel Trail” along the route of the controversial HS2 high-speed rail link to highlight the damage they say it will do to wildlife and woodland.
The aim of the protest walk, organised by Extinction Rebellion, is to try to persuade the government to halt the high-speed link. The walkers will travel through countryside, villages and local communities along phase one of the HS2 route to show solidarity with those opposed to the rail link and say the peaceful demonstration will raise awareness about the environmental damage they say HS2 will cause.
Continue reading...People are realising ‘we cannot keep looking away from these things’, says climate activist
Greta Thunberg has said the Black Lives Matter protests show society has reached a tipping point where injustice can no longer be ignored, but that she believes a “green recovery plan” from the coronavirus pandemic will not be enough to solve the climate crisis.
Reflecting on the protests that have swept the globe in recent weeks, the Swedish climate activist told the BBC: “It feels like we have passed some kind of social tipping point where people are starting to realise that we cannot keep looking away from these things. We cannot keep sweeping these things under the carpet, these injustices.
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In Oakland, thousands rallied with members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), whose workers arranged a strike at 29 ports up and down the West Coast.
I was there, earlier today. The union workers were joined by a motorcycle brigade, a car caravan, a fleet of cyclists, and thousands on foot. Activist and scholar Angela Davis and filmmaker Boots Riley addressed the crowd.
In Wisconsin, governor Tony Evers called on the state legislature to ban police chokeholds, among reforms that he unveiled today.
The Democratic governor did not ask for a special legislative session to take up the policy as soon as possible, as the Brack Legislative Caucus had requested.
Our country promises the opportunity of justice and equity and in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the calls for justice across our state and nation, and as we celebrate Juneteenth today, we are called to deliver on that promise.
Continue reading...Statues of colonialists and brutal leaders have been toppled by protesters or removed by governments in recent weeks as campaigns to bring down monuments to historical figures tainted by racism and slavery spread around the world.
In Belgium, during Black Lives Matter protests, numerous statues of King Leopold II, whose brutal rule of Congo caused an estimated 10 million deaths through murder, starvation and disease, were defaced and covered in red paint. While in the UK, Oxford University’s Oriel College voted in favour of removing its statue of the Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes.
In response to the latest action, the historian David Olusoga looks at the significance of these statues and examines the impact they have had on the victims of colonialists and imperialists, as well as the cost borne by their descendants
The lawsuit filed by the US against John Bolton aims to stop the former administration official “ from compromising national security by publishing a book containing classified information.”
But it states that “on or around” 27 April, Ellen Knight, who was reviewing Bolton’s manuscript, “had completed her review and was of the judgment that the manuscript draft did not contain classified information”.
Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened will be a critical account of the Trump administration, according to the publisher.
Bolton “shows a president addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government”, according to Simon and Schuster.
Continue reading...French nursing unions called for a national strike to ask for better working conditions and to demand the government keep its promise to overhaul France’s hospital system in response to the coronavirus crisis.
Police fired teargas after being pelted with objects by a small minority that overturned a car during the demonstration led by healthcare workers
Police say alleged assault on Chechen boy may have sparked reprisals in Grésilles area
The French government has vowed to bring an end to violence in the usually placid eastern city of Dijon after it was hit by a fourth night of unrest allegedly linked to score-settling by members of the Chechen community.
According to police, the incidents appear to have been sparked by an alleged assault this month on a 16-year-old Chechen boy, prompting reprisal raids.
Continue reading...A man was shot after a scuffle broke out when demonstrators tried to remove a bronze sculpture of a Spanish conquistador outside a museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A group of armed men had tried to protect the statue of Juan de Oñate. The injured man was in a critical but stable condition, police said.
Authorities later announced the monument would be removed until the next step could be determined
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Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been defaced yet again during Sunday afternoon’s Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles, although these days it might qualify as bigger news if the former reality TV host’s terrazzo-and-brass totem went longer than a week unmolested.
Trump’s star was defaced during today’s Hollywood protest march. #blm #hollywoodprotest #JusticeForGeorgeFlyod #hollywoodboulevard #hollywoodblvd #protests pic.twitter.com/UI3SOIZSiV
Hundreds of demonstrators have gathered at the Montana State Capitol building in Helena in protest of the killing of George Floyd and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Helena Independent Record reports Sunday’s protest is the largest of a number of demonstrations that have been held in Montana’s capital city in recent weeks amid the nationwide backlash to police-related violence against black and brown people.
The protest for George Floyd in Helena, MT is... huge. pic.twitter.com/LLwdiHMwxZ
Continue reading...Head of police union for England and Wales calls for emergency law during Covid-19 pandemic
Priti Patel has been urged to impose an emergency ban on all protests after Britain’s biggest police force condemned the “mindless hooliganism” and “utterly shocking” violence of far-right activists against its officers in London.
The head of the body representing rank-and-file police officers in England and Wales called for tougher restrictions on demonstrations after 23 officers were injured and more than 100 people were arrested during clashes in London on Saturday.
Continue reading...Demonstrators set fire to a fast food restaurant in Atlanta on Saturday where Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot dead by a police officer the previous night. Police were called to the restaurant over reports that he had fallen asleep in the drive-through line.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, said Brooks failed a field sobriety test and then resisted officers' attempts to arrest him.
The president’s West Point speech went smoothly but protests have focused a harsh light on his use of the military
Donald Trump attempted to solidify his bond with the US army on Saturday, delivering the graduation speech to cadets at the United States Military Academy and boasting of a “colossal” $2tn rebuilding of American martial might.
Related: Top US military general Mark Milley apologizes for Trump church photo-op
Continue reading...The US president may be the pro-democracy movement’s biggest backer, but some protesters feel they are being used
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement has struggled to reconcile the support it has received from Donald Trump with his administration’s brutal crackdown on protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
In the past few weeks, unprecedented Black Lives Matter protests, renewed by the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer, have spread to every US state and to countries across the world, regardless of pandemic restrictions.
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The Fulton county district attorney’s office has opened an investigation into an incident in which Atlanta police shot and killed a man on Friday night. Police responded to reports that a man had fallen asleep in his car at a Wendy’s drive-thru and was blocking traffic. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) says the man was shot and killed after police tried to take him into custody. One report says the man tried to grab a police taser. The GBI is conducting its own investigation. Unverified reports on social media say the man who died was black.
JUST IN: The #FultonCounty DA’s statement about the @Atlanta_Police involved shooting Friday night. pic.twitter.com/Z3mwwvOnNz
Athletes at the University of Texas have asked the school song to be changed along with the names of buildings on campus.
“The recent events across the country regarding racial injustice have brought to light the systemic racism that has always been prevalent in our country as well as the racism that has historically plagued our campus,” the athletes said in a statement.
Continue reading...Rightwing demonstrators, who announced they would turn out on Saturday to protect London's monuments from anti-racism protesters, were involved in scuffles with police outside Parliament.
In and around Parliament Square, hundreds of people wearing football shirts, chanting 'England, England' and describing themselves as patriots, gathered alongside military veterans at the Cenotaph war memorial.
The group sang songs in support of rightwing activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who goes by the name of Tommy Robinson. 'Winston Churchill, he's one of our own,' they also chanted, near his statue which last weekend was sprayed with graffiti reading: 'Churchill was a racist'.
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