ATHENS (AFP) - Greek police clashed with hooded youths on Thursday as thousands demonstrated against austerity measures aiming to end a crippling debt crisis and the country was gripped by a new general strike.
Violence broke out around a union demonstration in the capital with riot police firing tear gas at hooded youths who hurled firebombs and vandalised stores near parliament and other areas of the city centre.
Police said they had detained 16 people, of whom nine were later arrested, and that 13 officers were hurt after being hit by objects thrown by protesters.
They are hounded down
To the bottom of a bad town
Amid the ruins
Where they learn to fear
An angry race of fallen kings
Their dark companions
While the memory of
Their southern sky was clouded by
A savage winter
Every patron saint
Hung on the wall, shared the room
With twenty sinners
JOS, Nigeria (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday denounced the "atrocious" bloodshed in Nigeria after a massacre of Christian villagers, as police said 49 people would be charged over the killings.
As new gunfire added to the tensions around the flashpoint city of Jos, the Catholic Pontiff added his voice to a chorus of international revulsion over the weekend slaughter which police now say left 109 people dead.
About 8,000 Nigerians have also fled their homes around Jos in the wake of the violence, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
SAN IGNACIO, Mexico (AFP) - When the massive, barnacle-spotted head of a Pacific gray whale slid alongside Pachico Mayoral's wooden boat, he nervously reached out to touch it.
Like other fishermen, he usually beat his boat with a stick to try to frighten the giant mammals away, but for once he hesitated.
"The whale insisted, going from one side of the boat to the other, and at one point I was curious and, very gently, I stroked the whale's face. And nothing happened. It stayed calm," Mayoral said, driving a boat of tourists across the San Ignacio lagoon some 40 years later.
NOW ZAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday said a new strategy in the Afghan war showed promise after he visited a former ghost town where American forces recently cleared out Taliban militants.
As US Marines stood guard on roof tops and a small number of bemused Afghan men and boys looked on, Gates took a brief stroll along the dusty main street of Now Zad in southern Afghanistan, where a handful of humble shops have reopened since the Taliban retreated in December.
The mud-brick town remains mostly deserted and a long way from the bustling centre that once was home to about 30,000, but US officials hope life will gradually return as part of a NATO-led bid to push back the Taliban from its southern strongholds.
A guerilla does not stand and fight, they swim like a fish in the ocean.
JOS, Nigeria (AFP) - UN chief Ban Ki-moon appealed Monday for "maximum restraint" amid revulsion at the slaughter of more than 500 Christians in Nigeria, as survivors told how the killers chopped down their victims.
Funerals took place for victims of the three-hour orgy of violence on Sunday in three Christian villages close to the northern city of Jos, blamed on members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.
While troops were deployed to the villages to prevent new attacks, security forces detained 95 suspects but faced bitter criticism over how the killers were able to go on the rampage at a time when a curfew was meant to be in force.
This is a place you can talk about all things Oscar, from the couture on the carpet to how much more talented Steve Martin is than Alec Baldwin.
Don't expect much of a contribution from me, my main interest is that TV Guide Channel started their carpet coverage 2 hours ago and reduced their already teeny tiny window to a microscopic unreadable sliver.
IT'S A TV GUIDE IDIOTS!
My other observations are that having not seen any of the nominees in anything it would be cool if Sandra Bullock got an Oscar and a Razzie the same year, and that I read a very persuasive leftist critique of Avatar that contended the Na'vi were inherently racist.
REYKJAVIK (AFP) - Iceland's socialist government was surveying the damage Sunday after a referendum rejected a deal to pay Britain and the Netherlands billions for losses in the collapse of the Icesave bank.
As expected, Icelanders overwhelmingly voted down the deal in Saturday's referendum, with some 93.6 percent of voters lined up on the "no" side after more than 50 percent of the votes had been counted.
Only 1.5 percent of voters had so far voted "yes" to the Icesave deal, said RUV public broadcaster which compiles all electoral statistics.
"You're basically sending the bill to tax payers for the failure of a private bank"
REYKJAVIK (AFP) - Icelanders headed to the polls in drizzling rain Saturday in a referendum set to reject a bank repayment deal worth billions that many here consider a foreign diktat, but a "nei" vote is expected to plunge the country deeper into crisis.
"I will vote 'no' simply because I disagree very strongly with us... having to shoulder this burden" from the 2008 collapse of the online Icesave bank, Ingimar Gudmundsson, a 57-year-old truck driver, told AFP.
The issue is whether Iceland should honour an agreement to repay Britain and the Netherlands 3.9 billion euros (5.3 billion dollars).
LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown defended his role in the 2003 Iraq war Friday, telling a public inquiry it was "the right decision" and rejecting claims he denied funds for the military fight.
Brown distanced himself from military moves or diplomatic negotiations in the run-up to the conflict, but said he had always been fully informed and did everything required of him as finance minister under former premier Tony Blair.
"Nobody wants to go to war, nobody wants to see innocent people die, nobody wants to see their forces put at risk of their lives," he said, but added: "I think it was the right decision and made for the right reasons."
Liar. I hope the coming Conservative government, that he and Tony Blair guaranteed with their neo-Liberal policies and War Crimes, locks him in the Tower for the rest of his miserable life.
Chris Layman, a spokesman for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, said the suspect walked up to the main entrance of the Pentagon at 6:40 p.,m. and opened fire. He hit two officers, both of whom have injuries that are not life-threatening. The officers fired back, and the suspect was hit. His injures are more serious.
Layman declined to speculate on a motive.
In other news, Docudharma has 3 2 essays with "Pussy" (or some variation thereof) in the title and one with "Autistic AIG Wankers." I don't know what this means. Perhaps there's a meteorological event I missed.
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Early voting in Iraq's general election was overshadowed Thursday by two suicide bombings at polling stations that killed seven soldiers and a mortar attack that claimed the lives of seven civilians.
The blasts wounded 48 people, including 25 Iraqi soldiers, and came despite massive security, with troops, prisoners and the sick casting their ballots ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election.
Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Omar al-Baghdadi has threatened to disrupt the election by "military means" and 200,000 police and soldiers have been deployed in the capital alone to try to prevent attacks.
BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) - Three suicide attacks, including one by a bomber who rode in an ambulance to hospital before blowing himself up, killed 33 people in central Iraq on Wednesday, just days before nationwide elections.
The blasts in Baquba, the deadliest to hit the country in nearly a month, also wounded 55 people and spurred security forces to clamp an immediate curfew on the city, 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Baghdad.
At least 10 policemen were among the 33 dead, a security official said.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Key players on whaling huddled behind closed doors in Florida in an uncertain bid to find common ground on an issue that has bitterly divided Australia and Japan.
Negotiators opened talks at a resort hotel in Saint Pete Beach, near Saint Petersburg on Florida's Gulf coast, participants said. Media were not allowed into the talks in the hopes of encouraging a more open dialogue.
The delegates will review through Thursday a proposal by Cristian Maquieira, chairman of the 88-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC), that aims to work toward a grand compromise bringing aboard all sides on the debate.
CONCEPCION, Chile (AFP) - Thousands more troops were deployed across quake-hit Chile Tuesday as residents took up arms to stop a wave of mass looting in the nation's second city, slapped with an 18-hour curfew.
President Michelle Bachelet doubled the number of troops patrolling the worst hit areas to 14,000, as people in ravaged Concepcion were barred from leaving their homes from 6:00 pm to midday.
"Military personnel will be present in the streets of Concepcion until midday to maintain public order, and they will not waver in carrying out their duties," warned General Guillermo Ramirez.
March on Washington
