27 de maig de 2011 - Els Mossos d'Esquadra i Guàrdia Urbana han desallotjat aquest matí el campament d'indignats de Plaça Catalunya.

Focus-Fen: Police fire rubber bullets at protesters in Barcelona
Irish Times: Police break up Barcelona protest
20MinutosTV: Brutalidad en la Plaza de Cataluña - VIDEO

Thailand's king thinks he's too important to be insulted - American faces 15 years in prison for linking to a webpage.

Thai authorities said Friday they arrested an American citizen on charges he insulted the country's monarchy, in part by posting a link on his blog four years ago to a banned book about the Southeast Asian nation's ailing king. The man is also suspected of translating, from English into Thai, portions of "The King Never Smiles" — an unauthorized biography of King Bhumibol Adulyadej — and posting them online along with articles he wrote that allegedly defame the royal family, said Tharit Pengdith, who heads the Department of Special Investigation, Thailand's equivalent of the FBI.

The American has denied the charges, according to the Thai-language prachatai.com news website, which tracks cases of lèse majesté, as the crime of insulting the monarchy is known. The 54-year-old Thai-born man lived in the U.S. state of Colorado for around 30 years before returning recently to Thailand for treatment for high blood pressure and gout, the website said. If the allegations are true, the infractions would have been committed while he lived in America — where they are legal — raising concern about the reach of Thai law and how it is applied to Thai nationals and foreign visitors.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad yesterday to reinforce a message that the US wants to see greater co-operation in tackling militants following the killing of Osama bin Laden near the Pakistan capital.

Mrs Clinton, the most senior American official to visit Pakistan since US commandos killed the al-Qaeda leader, and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will meet Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the head of Pakistan's military. Tensions between the US and Pakistan have risen, with American lawmakers questioning Pakistan's commitment to fighting militants and the wisdom of giving $US7.5 billion ($A7 billion) in aid over five years. Pakistan has responded by limiting military contacts with the US and suggesting the closure of a supply route for troops in Afghanistan that runs through its territory.

ABC News: U.S. Presses Pakistan to Go After Specific Militant Leaders [or else...]
BBC: Clinton "exonerates" Pakistan over Osama Bin Laden
The Nation: Pak-US relations at turning point: Clinton

Amnesty International has obtained video footage that points to a ”shoot to kill” policy being used by the Syrian security forces to quell reform protests.

The footage, smuggled out of Syria by contacts of Amnesty International, shows protesters shot and beaten by security forces, soldiers conducting a night raid on the ‘Omari mosque in Dera’a and a mass funeral in Izraa. “These extraordinary images were taken by Syrians who have risked their lives to document the callous attempts of the authorities to terrorize the pro-reform movement from going out onto the streets,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “Faced with this and other compelling evidence of rampant abuses, President Bashar al-Assad must stop the Syrian security forces shooting unarmed protesters and ensure that perpetrators are held to account for their treatment of fellow Syrians.” The video includes scenes of:

• The military raiding the ‘Omari mosque, which was being used as a field hospital.
• Soldiers armed men in plain clothes inside the mosque after their operation, filming bodies on the floor, celebrating and shouting “Take pictures, we killed them, they are traitors”.
• Badly injured, possibly dead, individuals being carried hurriedly away.
• People who appear to have sustained severe head injuries and in some cases to have died as a result.
• Two scenes of uniformed members of the security forces bludgeoning injured men lying on the road.
• Testimony from an ambulance worker who tells of how the army would not let anyone tend to the wounded.

Gulf News: Syria video shows 'shoot to kill' policy: Amnesty
Facebook/PressTour: Syria video points to shoot to kill policy - VIDEO

War-crimes suspect Ratko Mladic looks hollow-cheeked and shrunken after a decade and a half on the run, nothing like the beefy commander accused of personally orchestrating some of the worst horrors of the Balkan wars.

A police photo of Mladic moments after his arrest in a tiny northern Serbian village shows a clean-shaven Mladic with thinning hair wearing a navy blue baseball hat and looking up with wide eyes, as if in surprise. After spending a night in jail, Mladic was due back in a Belgrade court on Friday for a hearing on his extradition to a U.N. war crimes tribunal. The Bosnian Serb wartime army commander is facing international war crimes charges, including the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. A Thursday extradition hearing was adjourned due to what Mladic's lawyer claimed was his poor health. Serbian war crimes prosecutors say the health issue appears to be a tactic to delay his extradition to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

LA Times: Mladic can be extradited, judge rules
B92.net: Obstacle removed, new to be invented
Google/AP: UN war crimes tribunal confident it can deal with Ratko Mladic health issues
The Dispatch: Serbia Says Jailed Mladic Will Face War Crimes Trial
Yahoo: Witness: An evening with Ratko Mladic
NYT: In a Serbian Village, Disbelief and Bitterness Over Arrest

WASHINGTON -- Congress on Thursday passed a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused.

Following the 250-153 evening vote in the House, the legislation to renew three terrorism-fighting authorities headed for the president's signature with only hours to go before the provisions expire at midnight. With Obama currently in France, the White House said the president would use an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president. Minutes before the midnight deadline, the White House said Obama had signed the bill.

PressTV: US Senate OKs Patriot Act extension
AWIP: There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says
Stephen Lendman: Extending Key Patriot Act Provisions

[Source] KABUL, Afghanistan — Nine NATO service members were killed Thursday in Afghanistan, including seven U.S. troops among eight who died when a powerful bomb exploded in a field where they were patrolling on foot, officials said.

Two Afghan policemen also died and two others were wounded in the explosion in the mountainous Shorabak district of Kandahar province, 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the Pakistan border, said Gen. Abdul Raziq, chief of the Afghan border police in the province. "Two months ago, we cleared this area of terrorists, but still they are active there," Raziq said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast. "A bomb was planted for them in a field," Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press in a telephone call.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information, confirmed that seven American service members died in the bombing. The international military coalition reported that one additional NATO service member was killed Thursday when a helicopter crashed in the east. U.S. officials said seven American soldiers were killed in the bombing. NATO said an eighth soldier was also killed, but his nationality was not immediately released. It was the deadliest day for coalition forces in Afghanistan since April 27, when a veteran Afghan military pilot opened fire at Kabul airport and killed eight U.S. troops and an American civilian contractor.

Jason Ditz: Eight US Troops Killed in Kandahar Blast
PressTV: US chopper shot down in Afghanistan

Congress has reliably defeated efforts to end the Afghan War on the back of strong support from a number of Representatives who have never seen a war they didn’t like. Today’s highly anticipated vote was assumed to be a defeat before it began, but turned out extremely close.

Indeed, though the amendment was defeated, it lost only 204-215, and carried more than 90% of the sitting Democratic representatives. With the bipartisan bill also carrying a number of freshmen Republicans’ support, a couple of shifts here or there could have actually swung the vote the other way, and left President Obama’s ambition to keep the war going beyond 2014 in an awful mess.

Jim Lobe: House Votes Suggest Growing War Weariness
Yahoo: US lawmakers pass $690 billion Pentagon bill

Pakistan also tells the U.S. to cut back its troops in the country, in a move amid deepening mistrust after the U.S. raid to kill Osama bin Laden and a CIA contractor's shooting of two Pakistani men. Joints Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen heads to Pakistan for talks.

Reporting from Washington— In a clear sign of Pakistan's deepening mistrust of the United States, Islamabad has told the Obama administration to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the country and has moved to close three military intelligence liaison centers, setting back American efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in largely lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and allied forces. U.S. special operations units have relied on the three facilities, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta, to help coordinate operations on both sides of the border, senior U.S. officials said. The U.S. units are now being withdrawn from all three sites, the officials said, and the centers are being shut down. It wasn't immediately clear whether the steps are permanent.

[Video] MADISON, Wisconsin (Reuters) - A Wisconsin judge on Thursday voided a controversial Republican-backed law restricting the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions.

Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi said Republican lawmakers violated the state's open meetings law in rushing the legislation through during massive protests at the state Capitol earlier this year. Sumi ruled the evidence was "clear and convincing" that Republicans failed to comply with the law in a hastily called meeting in March to push through legislation containing the collective bargaining changes. The Wisconsin proposal championed by Republican Governor Scott Walker would eliminate most collective bargaining rights for public sector unions and require them to pay more for pensions and health coverage. The law has been on hold pending the legal decision.

Stephen Lendman: Union Busting in America
Stephen Lendman: Reactionary Extremism in Wisconsin and Ohio
Stephen Lendman: Battleground Wisconsin: Corporate Power v. Worker Rights
Stephen Lendman: Spreading Activism for Change
AWIP: Wisconsin democratic state congressman rips the hell out of Republicans on the floor of Congress

US President Barack Obama has come under fire for violating the 1973 War Powers Act by continuing military operations in Libya without Congressional approval.

The Act authorizes the US president to commence military operations without consulting with US Congress. However, within 48 hours Obama must confer with Congress that will afterward have an additional 60-day period to vote on whether military operations are to continue. Sixty days have now passed and Congress has not approved the military operation, making the Libya war illegal, a Press TV correspondent reported on Friday. Dan Burton, the Indiana representative, says Obama “has received no authorization whatsoever from the Congress of the United States. And it is in violation of the War Powers Act.” “The president is not a king, and he shouldn't act like a king,” Burton added.

Israeli army spokesperson Brigadier General Ruth Yaron testified this week in what was expected to be the final hearing of the Rachel Corrie trial, now in its fifteenth month of oral testimonies. But once again, the conclusion of the oral testimonies has been pushed back and the Corrie family continues to wait for a final decision. Colonel Pinhas (Pinky) Zuaretz, the commanding officer of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade at the time of Rachel’s death, was expected to testify in court but could not appear. The lawsuit, filed in 2005 by the Corrie family, charges the Israeli government and the Ministry of Defense with criminal negligence, causing the death of 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie.

Rachel was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer on 16 March 2003 while attempting to shield the demolition of a home near the Rafah crossing in the occupied Gaza Strip. The case seeks one dollar in damages from the Israeli military. The highly symbolic reparation demand illustrates that the more meaningful redress for the Corries will be holding the Israeli army and government accountable for their criminal negligence and guilt in the killing of their daughter.

Reuters journalist Suleiman al-Khalidi, a Jordanian citizen, was arrested by Syrian security police when covering the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In the following story, he recounts his treatment at the hands of the Syrian intelligence services and the scenes of torture he witnessed around him during four days of confinement. Like other foreign correspondents, he was subsequently expelled from Syria. He now reports on the continuing unrest from Amman. The item is accompanied by an account by correspondent Yara Bayoumy of others' experiences of abuse in Syrian prisons.

U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, kicking off its 25th and final mission. The event was important to the eyes of media and scientists in China because the shuttle carries the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) particle detector, mankind's most ambitious effort to date to explore the universe' origin with Nobel laureate physicist Samuel Ting as the program's principal scientist. The 7,000-kg AMS worth 2 billion U.S. dollars will be placed in the International Space Station (ISS) and an international team of more than 600 scientists, including many from China's mainland and Taiwan, have joined Ting's exhausting but respectable AMS program.

China's scientists have played a crucial role in designing and manufacturing some core parts of the device. However, Chinese journalists who hoped to cover the launching of Endeavour were simply denied entry to the site by a ban initiated by Frank Wolf, chairman of the Committee of Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies in the House of Representatives.