Palestinian activists are talking of a 'new Naqba', a new catastrophe. The murderous attacks on the Right to Return marches are one part of a much wider assault. Most seriously, with the full backing of Donald Trump, a new Netanyahu government looks set to start annexing parts of the West Bank.

Such a move would be an open declaration by Israel and its Western backers that the recognition of Palestine is off the table.

In these circumstances, it is vital the whole of the movement stands with the Palestinians and that we defy the attempts that have been made over the last year to silence us.

Thousands of Sudanese demonstrators camped outside the defence ministry in Khartoum to push for a civilian government, defying a curfew and calling for mass prayers after the military overthrew Omar Al-Bashir after 30 years of autocratic rule.

Demonstrators who have been holding almost daily anti-Bashir protests rejected the decision to set up a transitional military council to run the country for two years and vowed to continue protests until a civilian government is established.

France’s Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has called for quick tax cuts in response to the anger expressed by Yellow Vests protesters. Philippe on Monday unveiled the results of a three-month “grand debate” launched by President Emmanuel Macron in response to the protests.

More than a dozen people have been arrested as Yellow Vest protesters flood the streets of French cities, marking the 21st consecutive week of mass demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron and his government.

Some 21 protesters were arrested in Paris on Saturday morning, local media reported, citing police. Eric Drouet, one of the leaders of the Yellow Vests, was fined 135 euro ($150) for violating public protest laws. The ruling was slammed by his lawyer who said that “if Drouet wants to have a cup of coffee at the Champs-Elysees, he has an absolute right to do so.”

Germans in large cities are protesting on Saturday against what they see as the unfair influence of large landlords on the housing market. They want the biggest players undercut and their property expropriated.

In past years, German people living in larger cities saw a wave of gentrification and rising rent levels. Some of the tenants couldn’t keep up and had to move out, while others had to leave when owners of their homes decided to tear them down and build new, more expensive property, which could generate more profits.

The situation in Berlin was among the most acute, with rent doubling over a decade. Some attempts by the authorities to rein in the growth, like the so-called rent-break in 2015, were underwhelming.

In a special briefing for the Christian Science Monitor, President Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow revealed that the administration is already working with banks internationally in plans to greatly increase US investment in Venezuela if there is a regime change.

President Trump has demanded immediate regime change, with Venezuela’s president to be replaced by their opposition leader, who is seen as more pro-US. Kudlow says there is a “Day Two” plan to see huge influxes of cash if and when that happens.

This is in keeping with the Trump Administration’s belief that it can effectively shut down the economy of a disobedient nation, and then miraculously turn things around at a moment’s notice once they comply.

Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of Washington, DC to oppose the upcoming NATO ministerial meeting in the US capital. The demonstrators also decried the continued US involvement in the Venezuelan political crisis.
The march was aimed at showing "mass popular opposition to NATO, wars, racism and US aggression against Venezuela," the National Mobilization Steering Committee, a loose, ad hoc coalition of activists representing dozens of peace movements and action groups, said in a statement.

Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of Washington, DC to oppose the upcoming NATO ministerial meeting in the US capital. The demonstrators also decried the continued US involvement in the Venezuelan political crisis.

The march was aimed at showing "mass popular opposition to NATO, wars, racism and US aggression against Venezuela," the National Mobilization Steering Committee, a loose, ad hoc coalition of activists representing dozens of peace movements and action groups, said in a statement.

There are few people in this world more odious than French President Emmanuel Macron after his behavior this week. I’m sure there are child molesters who are worse. But as a man who is pivotal in the future of hundreds of millions of people, his decision to order the French military to quell the Yellow Vests protests with live ammunition is simply vile.

Just last week, one of those morons over at CNN wasted 1,000 words or so telling us how President Donald Trump is setting us up to disbelieve the results of the 2020 election. Trump, this fool wrote, was a danger to democracy who could attempt to stage a revolution if he loses to a Democrat. It was full of all the same apocalyptic fury we heard in 2016, when Trump suggested that he would “let us know” whether he would dispute the results of that election. By casting doubts about the integrity of our voting system, these leftists worried, Trump was positioning himself as a would-be dictator. A menace. A bringer of the downfall of the republic.

And so forth.

The 30 March protests in the French capital will mark the 20th week of demonstrations against French President Emmanuel Macron’s economic policies as the second phase of the “Grand National Debate” is expected to continue in the next few days.

Last weekend, French police banned protests on the Champs-Elysees and in its vicinity. Similar precautionary measures were taken by police in the French cities of Nice, Marseille and Metz.

Moreover, ahead of the 20th Yellow Vests protests, French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that Operation Sentinelle troops have been mobilised to help maintain security in Paris and across the country. According to the French government, troops have only been deployed to guard symbolic sites.

There are few people in this world more odious than French President Emmanuel Macron after his behavior this week. I’m sure there are child molesters who are worse. But as a man who is pivotal in the future of hundreds of millions of people, his decision to order the French military to quell the Yellow Vests protests with live ammunition is simply vile.

A 73-year-old activist is the latest casualty of French President Emmanuel Macron’s crackdown on the Gilets Jaunes protest movement. Geneviève Legay of the anti-globalization group Attac had her skull fractured by police in Nice as they charged at her during the nineteenth consecutive week of protests against the president’s unpopular austerity and tax policies. The feminist campaigner and grandmother was carrying a rainbow flag marked “peace” as she was attacked, in what her family calls “willful violence” in an official complaint.

The embattled president went after Legay, currently in serious condition in the hospital, lecturing her on her “irresponsibility” for being in a “prohibited” area, claiming that, “when one is fragile and risks being shoved, one does not go to places that are declared off-limits and one does not put oneself in that kind of situation,” adding that he wished her “a speedy recovery…and perhaps a kind of wisdom.”

The left never had a dog in this race. This was always an in-house squabble between different wings of the establishment. Late-stage capitalism is in terminal crisis, and the biggest problem facing our corporate elites is how to emerge from this crisis with their power intact. One wing wants to make sure the pig’s face remains painted, the other is happy simply getting its snout deeper into the trough while the food lasts.

Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism.

The leaders of the Democratic party are less terrified of Trump and what he represents than they are of us and what we might do if we understood how they have rigged the political and economic system to their permanent advantage.

Protesters rallied outside the White House against AIPAC as the lobbyist group kicked off its annual conference on Sunday amid divisions among US politicians over support for Israel.

Pro-Palestinian groups, including Al-Awda, Students for Justice in Palestine, Answer Coalition, Code Pink and Neturei Karta, gave speeches condemning the Israeli occupation in Palestine and what they called AIPAC's overreach in Washington.

Others said they were there to show solidarity with Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman who came under attack over the past few weeks for what has been labelled as anti-Semitic rhetoric and questioning AIPAC's influence on US politicians.

Emmanuel Macron has been accused of patronising a 73-year-old gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protester who sustained a fractured skull after riot police charged demonstrators in an off-limits area of Nice.

Geneviève Legay was taken to hospital with serious head injuries on Saturday. Jean-Michel Prêtre, the Nice public prosecutor, said an investigation had been opened but it appeared Legay had hit her head on a concrete bollard as police tried to clear protesters.

Macron, who was in Nice on Monday along with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, who is visiting France, told the Nice-Matin newspaper he wished Legay a “speedy recovery”, but simultaneously criticised her.

“When one is fragile and risks being shoved, one does not go to places that are declared off-limits and one does not put oneself in that kind of situation,” he said.

Another rally, during which protesters demanded the resignation of President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic ended without major incidents on Saturday evening, a TASS correspondent reported from the scene.

"For four months, we have been campaigning for three major things: firstly, the resignation of president Vucic and Prime Minister Brnabic; secondly, the dismissal of the Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media’s council; and, thirdly, the resignation of Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic," Serbian actor and politician Branislav Lecic told the crowd.

He vowed that the protestors would take "resolute practical steps" if those demands are not met and if a transitional government, charged with holding early elections within six months, is not formed.

"Thousands will gather for a rally on April 13, and they will go all the way," Lecic said.

Druze Residents of the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams, at the foot of Mt. Hermon, staged a protest march against the US recognition of the Golan as Israeli territory.

The planned changes would require, in part, that tech giants such as Facebook and YouTube take responsibility for copyright materials users upload to their platforms. Though the measure is claimed to be aimed at protecting copyright holders, many note that it can easily be used to restrict freedom of speech.

This weekend's wave of 'Yellow Vests' protests arrived in Paris on Saturday despite a ban on protesting along the Champs-Elysees, which was announced by French Prime Minister Edouard Phillippe after violence erupted last weekend.

Ahead of the 19th Saturday seeing Yellow Vests protests in France, troops have been mobilised to help the police focus on protecting public order in Paris. The military can go as far as opening fire if their life or the life of people they defend are threatened, Gen. Bruno Leray, Paris military governor, said Friday.

French police have banned protests on the Champs-Elysees and in its vicinity, which had been slated to take place this Saturday, 23 March, according to their statement. Similar precautionary measures have been taken by police in the French cities of Nice, Marseille and Metz.

On 14 March, scores of Palestinians in the starving Gaza Strip took to the streets in several cities carrying the slogan “We Want to Live”, calling for “equality, dignity, food and job opportunities.” That day passed quietly, but the interior ministry in Gaza warned the protesters not to take to the streets again because Hamas, the Palestinian movement which has been ruling Gaza since 2007, “has been doing its best to afford these just demands.” However, they took to the streets the next day in larger numbers, but they were violent as they burnt tyres and insulted and threw stones at policemen, prompting violent responses.

While the Yellow Vests (Gilets Jaunes) protests actually began on 17.11.18, I think most are aware that frustration with the government has been building for many, many years. Sarkozy certainly played a big role in this. Deep-rooted contractions have been left unaddressed while offshore accounts were filled up. Without wanting to dedicate a lot of space to the details of each French government since the last massive riots in 1968, I think it is easier to proceed from the fact that France has been essentially occupied by America for decades. For me personally, this helps to explain a lot.

Soldiers will be deployed across France to help maintain security during this weekend’s planned Yellow Vest protests, President Emmanuel Macron has said. The military will secure government buildings and other sites to allow police forces to focus on maintaining public order, the president said, according to comments reported on Wednesday by government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux.

It is still just about possible, with a sustained deployment of the imagination, to conceive of a set of circumstances in which Theresa May might still be able to regard her Brexit policy as a success. If, for instance, she agrees in Brussels on Thursday on the conditional short extension offered by Donald Tusk on Wednesday ; if she gets her third “meaningful vote” motion past the Speaker next week; if her MPs take Tusk’s offer seriously; if she proves better at persuading enough of them to back her deal than in the past, then – just possibly – it may all seem to have been worthwhile. Or at least it may do so for about 48 hours, until the leadership challenge begins and the policy conflicts of the next – and longer – phase of Brexit negotiations with the EU start to split her party yet again.

France has announced tough new measures on “yellow vest” protests as the anti-government demonstrations entered its fourth month over the weekend, marked by clashes with the police, nearly 200 arrests and damage to businesses by some protesters.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford issued a statement Monday denying weekend media reports that the US plans to leave around 1,000 troops in Syria, saying the reports are “factually incorrect.”

Dunford presented the current planned “residual force” as 200, saying that this hadn’t changed since February. The US announced 200 would stay on February 21, but on February 22 officially increased that number to 400.

It’s not clear from Dunford’s statement where the “incorrect” aspect of the new report, which came out of a Wall Street Journal, exists. That report suggested that the 1,000 figure was not yet finalized, but was being discussed. Dunford’s comments didn’t include any details on what is actually being discussed, but just that nothing was finalized.

France’s prime minister said Paris’s police chief had been sacked and that the government would shut down “yellow vest” protests if violent groups were identified among the ranks of “yellow vest” protesters.

Catalonian independence activists are protesting on the streets of Madrid under the banner ‘self-determination is not a crime’.

More than 60 political collectives from Catalonia and other parts of Spain are heading to the nation's capital aboard 400 chartered buses, and are expected to gather and march between Atocha and Plaza de Cibeles.

The protesters are demanding that the US put and end to its involvement in Venezuelan internal affairs, lift the sanctions it imposed and rule out the possibility of military intervention in the country.

Hundreds of protesters gathered Saturday at Lafayette Square near teh White House to express their support for Venezuela's incumbent president Nicolas Maduro.

Hundreds of protesters are gathering in Washington DC to demand "No coup! No war! No sanctions!" on Venezuela, and show support for Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro against regime change efforts.

A large sea of demonstrators met at Lafayette Park for a march on Washington Saturday afternoon to show opposition to the Trump administration’s effort to overthrow Maduro and replace him with opposition figure Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself president with the support of the US, Canada, many European nations and other leaders.

President Trump says that the ongoing rioting in France is caused by dissatisfaction with the Paris accord on climate change.

‘How is the Paris Environmental Accord working out for France?’ Trump tweeted on Saturday.

‘After 18 weeks of rioting by the Yellow Vest Protesters, I guess not so well!

‘In the meantime, the United States has gone to the top of all lists on the Environment.’

It is unclear what Trump was referring to.

Surreal footage has emerged of a bank going up in flames after France's Yellow Vests were back in full swing on Saturday following a brief lull at the end of President Macron's unsuccessful 'great debate' - during which thousands of town halls were conducted over a two-month period in the hopes of solving national issues through citizen debates.

But now protests turned to riots are quickly returning to being potentially deadly with a number of dramatic close calls on Saturday.

Yellow vest protests in the French capital, which are ongoing for the eighteenth consecutive weekend, have evolved into serious clashes between activists and police, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Saturday.

As many as 31 people have been detained so far, according to media reports.

Earlier in the day, French police fired tear gas against protesters as yellow vest rallies continue for the eighteenth consecutive weekend in the country's capital, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

France has ended two months of citizen debates in which Yellow Vest supporters were invited to air their grievances. Parisians who spoke with RT said the meetings were a stunt used by Emmanuel Macron and won’t lead to real change.

The French president launched his “great debate” in mid-January in response to the popular Yellow Vest protest movement. Up to 500,000 people participated in 10,000 meetings nationwide, with discussion topics ranging from taxes to the environment. The national dialogue has been credited with giving Macron a much-needed boost in the polls – but few seem optimistic that the debates will lead to concrete changes.

“It would surprise me if he takes any measures, but I don’t expect anything,” one Yellow Vest supporter told RT.

Clashes between protesters and police broke out as the Yellow Vest rallies entered their 18th consecutive week, causing more headaches for President Macron, whose “great debate” aimed at pacifying the protests ended on Friday.

Saturday’s rally saw thousands of people flooding the streets of downtown Paris, with many wearing black balaclavas and holding French flags.

Violence erupted on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, where protesters congregated to take part in the weekly march which began in November. According to the Associated Press, Paris mobilized more police than in previous weeks in an attempt to stave off unrest.

A resolution recently introduced in the Missouri state legislature would affirm that boycotts are protected political expression.

The measure, sponsored by Black progressive lawmaker Brandon Ellington, says that “criticism of a nation by individuals, including as a nonviolent citizens’ boycott, does not constitute bigotry against the citizens of that nation.”

It upholds the constitutional right to boycott “any entity when [people] have conscientious concerns with the entity’s policies or actions,” adding that the state should not “punish individuals” for supporting boycotts by denying them contracts.

According to the resolution, boycotts are “an expression of encouraging the government of the nation to modify its policies and practices to uphold the inalienable human rights of all people within its borders.”

The heavy-handed policing of anti-government “yellow vest” demonstrations, during which thousands of protesters have been arrested and many wounded, reflects a steady erosion of civil liberties in France, the country’s human rights watchdog said.

Demonstrators are gearing up for major demonstrations in front of the White House in Washington March 16 to protest President Donald Trump's violent attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

“U.S. hands off Venezuela! NO to the coup — NO to sanctions — NO to a new U.S. war,” reads a statement by the Act Now to Stop War and Racism (Answer) coalition and some 150 other organizations and individuals behind the Saturday protest.

The upper house of the French parliament has greenlighted a bill giving police broad powers to quell unrest. It comes as a rights watchdog warned of civil liberties being undermined in France due to crackdowns on protest.
Following hours of tense debate on Tuesday, the French Senate approved an anti-hooligan ('anti-casseurs') bill by a margin of 210 votes to 115.

The bill has courted widespread controversy, having been denounced as "liberticide" by the left, and hailed as a "the law of protections" by the French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.

Concerns over the Trump administration's increasingly hostile policy in Venezuela grew Tuesday after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the U.S. was withdrawing all diplomatic personnel from the country.

Pompeo cited the "deteriorating situation" in Venezuela that escalated in January after the U.S. recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as "interim president," rebuking President Nicolas Maduro and coordinating efforts to overthrow the elected government.

Pompeo announces US pulling out all diplomats from #Venezuela pic.twitter.com/LAev9qtyqR

— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) March 12, 2019
The presence of embassy staff in Venezuela is a "constraint" on US policy? That sounds very regime changey to me. Buckle up just in case. pic.twitter.com/y1ckutYKG2

— Hawaii Delilah™ (@HawaiiDelilah) March 12, 2019

“Palestine” has been compared to many things. The world’s longest colonial war, a “hell-disaster” – Churchill’s memorable epithet – and the site of Israel’s “war on terror”, a conflict in which we are supposed to believe that the Palestinians are playing the role of al-Qaeda or Isis or any other outfit which the west and its allies have helped into existence, and which Israel is going to fight on our behalf.

But there are times when Palestine turns out to have been located in the Bermuda Triangle. The Palestinians disappear. They cease to exist. They are forgotten, irrelevant, outside the landscape of fear, pain, injustice and occupation that we once heard about so often. No one can imagine what has happened to these Palestinians. Like the aircraft and boats which strayed into the mythical triangle, they shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Sad to see them go. But it’s a mystery.

Fifty weeks have passed since the Great March of Return demonstrations began at the fence separating the Gaza Strip and Israel. Since March 30, protesters in Gaza have demanded the right to return to their homes and villages in historical Palestine, and demanded an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of many basic commodities. Palestinian woman have been a part of the protests from the beginning. According to Gaza Health Ministry, more than 250 Palestinians have been killed during the Great March of Return, including six women.

On this Friday, more than 7,000 Gazans demonstrated, more than half of them women after the leaders of the protest called for Palestinians to join in the “Friday of Palestinian women” in honor of International Women’s Day.

Lawmakers last month backed tighter internet controls contained in legislation they say is necessary to prevent foreign meddling in Russia’s affairs. But some Russian media likened it to an online “iron curtain” and critics say it can be used to stifle dissent.

People gathered in a cordoned off Prospekt Sakharova street in Moscow, made speeches on a stage and chanted slogans such as “hands off the internet” and “no to isolation, stop breaking the Russian internet”.

The rally gathered around 15,300 people, according to White Counter, an NGO that counts participants at rallies. Moscow police put the numbers at 6,500.

“If we do nothing it will get worse. The authorities will keep following their own way and the point of no return will be passed”, said 28-year-old protester Dmitry, who declined to give his full name.

A crowd of Yellow Vest protesters broke into and trashed a Masonic lodge in the French village of Tarbes. The ransacking has been condemned by the French government, who accused the protesters of “stupidity” and “intolerance.”

Some 450 protesters had gathered in Tarbes on Saturday for the 17th straight weekend of anti-government demonstrations. Around midnight, La Dépêche paper reported, some protesters began shouting “we’re going to the freemasons!”

A smaller crowd of protesters marched on the Masonic temple, with one battering down the door of the secretive organization’s clubhouse. More protesters pelted rocks at the building and eventually the group forced its way inside. They overturned furniture, trashed the esoteric art hanging on the walls, and stole four ceremonial swords; they gave these back later on.

For some months now, France has been the scene of turbulent upheaval. Fierce social conflict has long been a defining feature of the country’s political life. It has been a historical given in a nation constructed, for the most part, post-1789 on the basis of a revolution of universal scope that, along with the social advances won in 1936, 1945 and 1968, still exerts a strong hold on the collective memory and the country’s institutions, despite attempts to eradicate all traces of it.

Tens of thousands of people braved cold weather on Friday in Algiers to demand President Abdelaziz Bouteflika step down, as rallies against the ailing leader's re-election bid spread across Algeria for a third consecutive week.

The protest, which coincided with International Women's Day, saw an even larger crowd pour onto the streets of the capital compared with the previous mass gatherings.

In what has become a habit since February 22, the mostly young demonstrators chanted slogans against the 82-year-old president, his brother and "le pouvoir", or the powers that be - a vague term Algerians use to refer to the shadowy clique of politicians, high ranking military officials and oligarchs who they believe have been running the country.

Several hundreds of protesters gathered on Saturday at the Place Charles de Gaulle in the French capital of Paris for the 17th consecutive weekend of rallies of the yellow vest movement opposing the French government's social policies, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

While these protesters are planning to walk around three miles during their march, another group of protesters is holding a sit-in demonstration. They are going to sit at the Champ de Mars in downtown Paris during the whole day.

On the same day, yellow vest protests are scheduled to take place in the French cities of Lille, Bordeaux, Toulouse and others.