Sicily is continuing its fight against NATO's MUOS satellite systems. The Mobile User Objective System is a high-frequency narrow-band military satellite communications system that consists of 4 geostationary satellites and 4 ground-based receiving stations that NATO uses to communicate and transfer commands to its submarines, fighters and drones.

One of these MUOS stations is located in Niscemi, Sicily.

Last week, on June 21, people from all over Sicily protested against the 'occupation' by military bases. More than a thousand people marched in Catania under the slogans: “US - Out of Italy, Italy - Out of NATO”, “Sicily will be better off without MUOS and Sigonella” [Sigonella - a NATO military base - Sputnik], and “Yankees Go Home.”

Honduran military police opened fire at protesters outside the national university, injuring five people. Authorities said live ammunition was used in response to molotov cocktails which injured officers.

Protests demanding the resignation of the country's president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, have intensified in recent weeks as momentum gathers against privatization and austerity measures targeting the health and education sectors.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis is fending off corruption charges, trouble in parliament, and a countrywide protest movement against his government. Hundreds of thousands have rallied against him in Prague.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Prague demanding that PM Andrej Babis resign.

Mr Babis is facing a criminal investigation over alleged fraud, and is also the subject of an EU conflict-of-interest investigation. He denies the allegations.

Organisers say about 250,000 people attended the rally. The figure could not be verified.

It is said to be the largest protest since the fall of communism in 1989.

Who was marching?
The protest was organised by the Million Moments for Democracy group. The movement has grown from a small student initiative into a mass movement.

What are the allegations against Babis?

The prime minister is facing a criminal investigation in the Czech Republic for alleged abuse of €2 m in EU subsidies over 10 years ago.

The Honduran government announced the nationwide deployment of military forces on Thursday, amid intensifying nationwide protests against President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Mass demonstrations began nearly two months ago, when teachers and medical professionals took to the streets to protest a series of decrees they say facilitate the further privatisation of health and education.

The movement quickly evolved into nonstop multi-sector nationwide protests and blockades demanding "Fuera JOH" (Out With JOH), using the acronym for the president's name.

At least three protesters have been killed and more than 20 wounded in the last four days alone.

Yellow Vests rallies continue in the French capital and other cities across the country to express ' opposition to the Macron government's policies.

Some protestors have also gathered at toll roads to prevent them from accepting payments, making them open for everyone for free.

Yellow Vests are holding protests for the 32nd consecutive weekend in parts of France. The movement emerged in France in mid-November over planned fuel tax hikes.

OURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
Yemen’s Houthi movement launched fresh drone attacks targeting Jizan and Abha airports in southern Saudi Arabia, the group’s Al-Masirah TV said on Saturday, adding the installations were out of service, Reuters reports.

The Saudi-led coalition said in a statement that it had intercepted and downed a Houthi drone targeting the southwestern city of Abha.

The Iran-aligned group said multiple drone strike targeted control rooms at Jizan airport and a fuel station at Abha airport.

“The two airports are now out of service. We promise the Saudi regime more painful days as long as the aggression and siege continue on our country,” the group’s armed forces spokesman said in a tweet published by Al-Masirah TV’s account.

The Houthis have launched several strikes targeting Abha airport since Wednesday, when a missile attack against the same airport wounded 26 people.

After senior American senators introduced legislation on Thursday requiring that the US president to protect Americans from the effects of the proposed Hong Kong extradition law, sanction individuals responsible for abducting booksellers, journalists and activists, senior Chinese officials on Friday were predictably less than thrilled, as well as requiring the State Department to re-certify Hong Kong's sovereignty every year to maintain its special trading relationship with the US.

And while more Hong Kong officials urged the government to 'pause' the process for passing the extradition bill, senior Chinese officials have reportedly summoned officials from the US embassy in Beijing to issue a stern warning to Washington not to interfere in the situation in Hong Kong

CHINA'S FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS LODGED STERN REPRESENTATIONS TO U.S. REGARDING HONG KONG
CHINA'S FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS SUMMONED SENIOR U.S. EMBASSY OFFICIAL IN BEIJING

In two surprising votes held on Thursday, the Senate rejected bills by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to block US arms sales to Bahrain and Qatar. The Bahrain vote was 43-56, and the Qatar vote was 42-57.

Sen. Paul has been leading pushes against selling US arms to countries with authoritarian governments. In Thursday’s comments he declared that “dumping more weapons into the Middle East won’t get us any closer to peace.” He also urged the US to “stop sending arms to people who abuse human rights.”

The Senate leadership dismissed such concerns, saying that Bahrain and Qatar would find arms somewhere even if the US didn’t sell them. Emphasis on the importance of the two nations centered on them hosting America’s 5th Fleet and Central Command headquarters, respectively. The White House had threatened to veto either of the measures if they’d passed.

Women’s rights campaigner and activist Nahid Jabrallah has told the German publication Deutsche Welle that the Rapid Support Forces, part of Sudan’s security services, raped numerous Sudanese women and men as they violently dispersed a pro-democracy sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum last week.

Sudan has been rocked by unrest since 11 April when military generals forced then President Omar Al-Bashir out of office following popular protests against his three-decade rule. Since then protesters have continued to pressure the Transitional Military Council to hand over power to a civilian government.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA.COM
Protest campaign will continue until military transfers power to civilian government, organisers say.

Sudanese police have fired tear gas at protesters taking part in a "civil disobedience" campaign, called in the wake of a deadly crackdown on demonstrators, that began on Sunday.

Protesters gathered tyres, tree trunks and rocks to build new roadblocks in Khartoum's northern Bahari district, an unnamed witness told AFP news agency, but riot police swiftly moved in and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.

"Almost all internal roads of Bahari have roadblocks. Protesters are even stopping residents from going to work," said the witness.

The latest bid by demonstrators to close off streets in the capital comes nearly a week after a deadly raid on a sit-in outside the army headquarters that killed dozens.

It’s not your duty to prop up a corrupt and immoral system.

In fact, it might be your duty to deny it your support.

That was the main message of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (although it took her about 23,000 times as many words to say it).

In Atlas Shrugged, the very capable and productive Dagny Taggart couldn’t leave America behind. She slaved away to support the masses and the politicians even as they ridiculed and hated her for it.

Protesters burned and looted some 30 shipping containers marked with the logo of the Dole Food Company in Honduras on Sunday, a military official said, in the second attack on symbols of U.S. power in the Central American nation in recent days.

Protests against U.S.-allied Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez have been building in recent weeks over planned reforms that Hernandez’s critics argue will lead to the privatisation of public services.

The attack on the convoy of trucks took place in rural Honduras early on Sunday on a road passing through a village known as Guadalupe Carney, some 330 km (205 miles) from the capital, Tegucigalpa, senior military official Fernando Leiva said in an interview posted by Honduran media.

Several hundred people have shown up for the ‘march of the mutilated’ in Paris, protesting police brutality and demanding a ban on the weaponry law enforcement uses to control demonstrators.

People gathered in central Paris on Sunday, the day after ‘Act 29’ of the Yellow Vest protests. The demonstrators carried banners, showing injuries – such as lost eyes and limbs – various protesters have received over the past few months and demanding a ban of the ‘less-lethal’ weapons used by police.

For years I have talked about “White Trash Revolutions”, and the emergence of the Yellow Vests proves that my finger is perfectly on the pulse of things: the only people publicly wearing “Yellow Vests” on the streets of Paris prior to November 17, 2018, were… garbage men.

So, imagine me, with my love of Trash Revolutions of all hues (Iran’s 1979 “Revolution of the Barefooted” amounts to the same idea)… and then the French adopted the look of trash collectors as their uniform – I couldn’t be happier!!!

But this idea is not new – even in modern 24/7 politics, genuine historical processes take years or decades to culminate. In 2016, following the election of Donald Trump in the United States, Slavov Zizek expressed the same idea offhandedly: “Sorry, White Trash is our only hope. We have to win them over.”

I could not agree more. But we must go further than just “winning over Trash” – we must let them win.

That is the essence of China’s Cultural Revolution.

On Thursday, European parliamentary elections commenced in some European states, and on Sunday, the final day of voting across the EU, remaining countries are heading to the polls.

BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — Belgian police made arrests and engaged in small scuffles with yellow vest protesters who gathered in the center of Brussels for an unauthorized rally, local media reported on Sunday.

A call for the Sunday demonstration has been circulating for weeks on social media, La Derniere Heure newspaper said. A few hundred yellow vest activists followed the call, but the event was not authorized.

This week Palestinians marched to Germany’s diplomatic offices in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah and in the besieged Gaza Strip to protest the German Bundestag’s recent resolution equating the BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – movement for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism.

The marchers in Ramallah on Wednesday delivered a letter signed by representatives of 200 Palestinian civil society groups condemning “in the strongest terms the German parliament’s resolution, which is based on outright lies.”

What if they called a war and no one came? Well, now’s the time folks. The apparent march to war with Iran represents a pivotal moment in the historical arc – the rise and fall – of our republic come empire. This potential war is so unnecessary, so irrational, that it borders on the absurd. Still, since the U.S. now fields a professional, volunteer military, few citizens have “skin in the game.” As such, they could hardly care less.

Unlike in past wars – think Vietnam – there is no longer a built in, established antiwar movement. This is unfortunate, and, dangerous for a democracy. See the US Government operates with near impunity in foreign affairs, waging global war without the consent of the people and, essentially, uninterested in what the people have to say at all. It should not be thus in a healthy republic. People should not fear their government; governments should fear their people.

Tunisian protesters in Sidi Bouzid on April 29 after a car crash killed 12 people, including seven female day laborers. The deaths triggered an outcry on social media, with users accusing farm owners of treating their low-paid, mainly female workforce "like cattle." (Moktar Mahouli/AFP/Getty Images) (Moktar Mahouli/AFP/Getty Images)

The question of why some militaries repress protesters while others side with them has taken on renewed interest. In recent weeks, militaries in Algeria and Sudan abandoned their dictators in the face of protests, while the United States has failed to get Venezuela’s to do the same. These events have led scholars to reflect on the factors that influence military defection and loyalty, such as the officers’ material interests, offers of immunity for past abuses and expectations of how other officers will respond.

The Stand up to Trump campaign expects a large number of people to turn up for protests against the state visit of US President Donald Trump to the United Kingdom, the movement's spokesman, Denis Fernando, told Sputnik.

According to a recent YouGov poll, 13 percent of London's 8-million population are 'likely' to join the protests.

France's Yellow Vest protesters are taking to the streets for the 27th weekend in a row. A major protest is set to take place in Paris.

Tens of thousands have marched in the streets of France every Saturday since November 2018, for a variety of grievances ranging from taxes on fuel to income inequality.

In addition to protesting in France, the Yellow Vests have been spotted in other parts of Europe.

With the rise of the Yellow Vest Movement in France - which began last October and continues today - French activists and writers have begun to re-evaluate the state of French income and poverty. Since the movement began, articles with titles such as " Revealed: The shocking scale of poverty in France in 2018 " or " Soul-searching in France as poverty leaves one million children hungry " have become more overtly political given the context of the protests.

Typically, the government's response to accusations of widespread poverty - which, as in America, are not necessarily accurate accusations - has been to spend more money on social programs.

But here's the thing: France is already spending more than the rest of Europe when it comes to welfare programs. According to the OECD, when it comes to "public social spending" as a percentage of GDP, France tops the list at over 31 percent.

Thousands of people rallied in Prague on Monday in fresh protests against the new justice minister over concerns she could clear the prime minister of fraud allegations.

Some 20,000 people gathered in the capital's historic Old Town Square for a third week in a row, according to Czech media, and thousands of others protested in the second city of Brno.

Police charged billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis in connection with a two-million-euro EU subsidy scam last year and called on prosecutors to indict him last month.

Activists gathered on Saturday in Paris for the 26th consecutive week of Yellow Vests protests, as President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to cut the income tax in order to ease the economic burden on French taxpayers.

Last week, three separate protests took place in Paris, and people took to the streets of Lyon, Toulouse and Montpellier. In addition, another rally took place at Charles de Gaulle Airport, where people protested against the privatisation of the airport.

The so-called "Petrol Uproar", which has been largely modelled after the Yellow Vests of France and is pushing for lower fuel prices, gathered a quarter of a million supporters on Facebook in no time.

Over 300 media organisations, journalists, photographers, and others have signed a letter denouncing the sometimes brutal violence used against members of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement and members of the press themselves in France.

The letter claims that press freedom in France has been suffering for years but entered a new phase following the start of the Yellow Vest protests in November of last year, Franceinfo reports.

“All these forms of violence have physical (injury), psychic (trauma) or financial (broken or confiscated equipment) consequences. We are personally and professionally denigrated and criminalized,” they wrote, and added that journalist David Dufresne had counted at least 698 cases of people being attacked or injured by police at the protests, including 85 journalists.

In some ways this is a dark time for human rights. Yet while the autocrats and rights abusers may capture the headlines, the defenders of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law are also gaining strength. The same populists who are spreading hatred and intolerance are spawning a resistance that keeps winning its share of battles. Victory in any given case is never assured, but it has occurred often enough in the past year to suggest that the excesses of autocratic rule are fueling a powerful counterattack.

French police clashed with stone-throwing protesters as tens of thousands of people started marching in Paris Wednesday for May Day rallies under tight security. More than 200 arrests were made.

Riot police repeatedly used tear gas and sting grenades to try to control the crowd gathering near Paris’ Montparnasse train station for the main protest. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people were injured. At least two men with head wounds were helped away from the scene by paramedics.

Associated Press reporters saw groups of hooded, black-clad people shouting anti-police slogans, mixing with other protesters wearing yellow vests or waving union flags.

The FBI is investigating anti-fascist activists for an alleged plot to buy guns from a Mexican cartel in order to “stage an armed rebellion” at the southern border, according to an unclassified document obtained by The Chicago Tribune.

The FBI document, from December of 2018, warns of militant antifa activists planning to “disrupt security operations” at the U.S.-Mexico border. The group allegedly planned to buy guns from a Mexican cartel associate known as Cobra Commander, in order to “stage an armed rebellion at the border.”

Yellow Vest protesters who have suffered life-changing injuries at the hands of French police have launched their own association, promising fresh actions against police brutality.

Called “the mutilated for the edification of others,” the collective aims to accurately calculate the number of people who have been injured nationally by police during Yellow Vest protests. It also called for an end to the use of the non-lethal weapons deployed by French police — namely tear gas canisters and Flash Balls — and a large national demonstration is scheduled in Paris on May 26.

Among those attending was Jerome Rodrigues, a prominent Yellow Vest leader who was hit in the eye with a gas canister during a demonstration in January. “You have 19 people in front of you and you have only 26 eyes that look back,” he told the press conference. “Count, there is a small problem,” he added.

Yellow Vest protesters have marched on the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, prompting police to deploy tear gas. The demonstrators have also swarmed several TV stations, demanding better coverage of their movement.
The 24th consecutive weekend of demonstrations saw more than 5,000 protesters take to the streets across France, including 2,600 in Paris, according to Interior Ministry figures, which the Yellow Vests have often questioned in the past.

In Strasbourg, tear gas filled the streets as police struggled to keep hundreds of demonstrators away from the EU Parliament buildings. Police have blocked roads and bridges, and clashes have broken out between heavily armored riot control officers and masked protesters.

Unrelenting Yellow Vest activists have marched in Paris and other French cities for the 24th straight weekend, just days after Emmanuel Macron tried to placate the protest movement with promises of lower taxes.

The demonstrators who assembled in Paris, Toulouse and Strasbourg on Saturday appear to signal that despite the French president’s recent concessions to the group, the Yellow Vest movement is alive and well.